Summary: 'When we rid ourselves of these demons haunting us/Won't it be odd to be happy like we always thought we're supposed to feel/But never seem to be?' – Barenaked Ladies, "War on Drugs"
Spoilers: Season 3 premiere. You may also want to read my prior 'Sweet Misery' for background but that's not absolutely essential.
Standard disclaimers apply.
Original Character Bio: Liz Rycoff, after surviving the first two days, no longer works at CTU. Instead, she took over Mason's position after he died, in order to protect CTU from another annoying bureaucratic panic, but she's not really qualified. Still, she soldiers on. Liz was close friends with Mason, but now all she really has left is Jack. The two of them started a relationship about a year after Day 2, but it's kind of going slowly. She also had a failed non-relationship of sorts with Tony between Day 1 and Day 2, and Tony now kind of looks out for Liz.
Dedication: Kiefer Sutherland, all the way, baby. *G* And Kayla for the great feedback.
Recommended Listening: "Hollow" by Forty Foot Echo.
"If you try to save everyone, it's you who goes under."
Liz glanced up from her examination of her kitchen table and slowly met his eyes. Jack was leaning on the island, arms folded across his chest, giving her that look. It was the same look he'd used to give her in the back of a surveillance van when he thought she was being too much a hard-ass for her own good, that nobody would ever crack her walls. But this time it was different: she was being a hard-ass because she had let down that last wall for him after all these years, and he'd shot their world to hell. And he had the nerve to give her that look? She had a reply on her tongue but held it, because beyond the belligerence, she knew what was really there. A proud man falling, who needed to hang on, and would never admit it.
She took another long drink of wine. "Yeah, well, you can't save anybody who won't first save themselves."
Jack chuckled under his breath and looked away for a second. "True," he said, knowing exactly what she meant. He held his own retort; he could see the damage she'd taken, too. And not all of it was his fault, although some of it was. The extra lines on her face, the hardness around her eyes, she had gone through a lot. He never asked her what she'd been doing while he was undercover with Salazar for those six months, and she'd never told. It was one of those things they just didn't discuss. "Can we not talk about this?" he said, his voice suddenly a bit rough. "I don't want to do this now."
"If not now, when, Jack?" she said, finishing the glass.
"I don't know, Liz. I just don't know."
"You never do." Her tone implied this was, as it always had been, an unfinished discussion, but she shook her head. When they were at her apartment – because she didn't like to go home with him, even two years later – they were together, and they were there for each other. They didn't let anything else get in the way. Too much had gotten in the way before. "It's all right, Jack. Eventually, it will be all right," she said as she stood, starting toward him.
"You say that all the time," he told her, reaching for her anyway.
She nodded. "Yeah, and you know why? Because if I don't believe it … then I'm not here anymore." Looking into his eyes, she could feel his heart beating against hers. He was nervous again, and she wondered how long it had been since his last high, but didn't want to know. Not that from a man she'd known so long. It had been so hard, so many things had changed, and yet they were still here. And they were both finally moving forward. They needed to let go, they needed to seize this chance, because who knew when another one would ever come along again?
Even as he kissed her gently, tasting like the merlot, they knew the truth for what it was. She was his superior officer, so that was one rule broken, even if he'd already broken it four and a half years ago with somebody else they didn't want to name. And now she was covering up – well, she wasn't purposefully covering, she just wasn't saying anything – his addiction, the things he'd gone through. She knew she could be held accountable for that if it ever went on record, no matter how he would try to cover for her. But the truth was she needed him and he needed her, and that would be the end of them both, the day this was just a memory.
"Liz," he said, his voice desperate in her ear.
"Yeah."
"I love you."
"Jack, you don't have to…"
"Yes, I do." He paused. "Do you trust me?"
"What the hell…"
"Just tell me. Do you trust me?"
"I always have and always will."
"Then trust me. I love you."
She was stunned into temporary silence. She had told him that he never needed to say those words, not after what had happened before. Yet he had said them anyway. Then and only then did she allow herself to find them.
"I love you, too, Jack."
"I know." He kissed her again. "That's why you're doing this."
-maybe you've got the world blind
but I know you deep inside
I'm gonna wait to expose you
one day I will know the truth-
Tony and Michelle's wedding had dropped the floor out from under all of them. Not that they weren't expecting it – no one was surprised to get their invitations, and Liz actually didn't complain when she had to wear a dress and Michelle asked her to be a bridesmaid – but it was another benchmark of the fact that this wasn't yesterday's world. Tony, of course, had taken it upon himself, given their past and the death of George Mason, to look out for Liz, and even with his own life rushing forward, never neglected that unofficial duty. During rehearsal he'd snagged her by the arm, pulled her aside.
"Don't you have better things to do?" she'd asked him.
"Always love that attitude, don't you?"
"Can't help it, I'm Irish, remember. You know what they say about Irish women."
He'd smiled. "How you holding up?"
"I'm all right." She'd looked past him, at the setup and Michelle looking so happy about everything. "But I wish Jack could be here." Jack, of course, was undercover with Salazar, and damned if Liz hadn't been running herself ragged – behind closed doors, but everyone knew – to find out what he was up to.
Tony put his hand on her shoulder. "I know, but hey, you know Jack, he does what he has to do." There was a moment of silence between them. "How are you two holding up?"
"We're holding, but I don't know how much more we can take." She saw the alarm in his eyes. "He's done some insane things to himself, Tony. You know, when he split with Teri, she told me he came home and he was so distant. He would never talk to her about what he had seen during Nightfall. Now I know how that feels. But I have to stand by him. I just don't know any other way."
"He'll come around, Liz. Jack is just complicated. We all are. He just has to sort himself out. And this time he's got to do it on his own."
She nodded. "Get back to your fiancee, Tony. You don't deserve to be caught up in all of this."
"Wait for it, we live on it," he said. "We just take weekends off every now and then."
She'd laughed, but it wasn't so funny anymore. The day after that Kim had phoned her from CTU and asked if they could have lunch. Thinking it was the daughter worrying over the father, or something about that asshole named Adam who kept annoying her, Liz had consented and they had met at a place downtown, out in the sun, with a light breeze and a not half bad view. Somewhere through the middle of the meal Kim had just stopped and Liz had stared at her as she said, "You know, it's okay for you to be dating my father."
"Kim?"
"Liz. Seriously." The blonde had pushed hair out of her face and smiled just a bit. "I know … I know you don't want to intrude on the memory of my mom. But my mom's been gone almost five years now. My dad needs to move on. No one's going to be horribly offended I promise. If anything … my mom would be content to know that my dad's with somebody she liked and trusted with our lives."
Liz had swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. "Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure." Kim nodded. "Liz, I'm moving on too. I've got Chase … I just want my dad to be happy. And he is happy with you. That's all that matters."
For the first time it had hit Liz about the enormity of her relationship with Jack. She had been able to duck it for so long because it was so abnormal. They didn't schedule dates or make tender phone calls or any of the things normal couples did, in fact sometimes they hadn't seen each other on a romantic basis in weeks, or in this case months. Tony and Michelle went out and did things and had flowers and the storybook romance, but Liz and Jack just were, and just let things fall where they might. Except now they had really, truly done it, gotten themselves in deep, and she had crossed a line, put herself in the history books in a more permanent place.
"I'm going to try," she'd told Kim. "I'm going to give it my best shot."
-then you'll come round
and I'll be waiting here
yeah it won't make sense
when they open their eyes to you
when they open their eyes-
They sat in bed together. They had slept together only a few times, but this wasn't one of them. Most of the time, if he were staying over, they sat up and talked. Because they had things to talk about, and because having someone to hold on to in the middle of the night meant she didn't wake up feeling the pressure and he had less desire to go load himself full of drugs. She would never let him use when he was with her. He had to go cold the whole time, and it was hard but it was something he was able to do. There were certain rules and they never spoke them but always kept them.
"Do you miss it?" he said, staring at the wall. "Being there? I mean, I know we have all the new functions you could play with."
"It's not like I'm completely gone. Tony and Michelle and I still talk and all that." She exhaled. "But yeah, I miss it, sometimes, if I let myself think about it."
He chuckled. "You did say Division was not your thing."
"Yeah, but what choice do I have?" She turned to look at him. "I'm not meant for this life, Jack. I knew that then and I know that now, but somebody had to do this. If not me, who? If not now, when? I can sublimate my life if it means the right thing."
"You shouldn't have to."
"Spoken by the man who did the same thing." Liz reached for his hand under the blanket. "Jack, this is the hand life dealt me. These are the choices I made. In the end, we become the sum total of the choices we make. What is, is. But I'm not completely gone yet. One thing's saving whatever's left of me."
In the darkness she could still see him manage a smile. "Oh, yeah? What?"
"You." She saw his smile turn a bit more somber, more reflective. "Hey, if this is going to be the night for things we never said…"
"…Thank you for saying it." There was a long pause between them. Long pauses had been common in their relationship before. They could communicate as easily nonverbally as they could with words, and oftentimes just shared glances, gestures, body language, emotions while everyone was going on around them. Jack let go of her hand, put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her just that small distance closer. After a second, he said, "Because I know how arrogant you are."
She burst out laughing. It felt good. She hadn't laughed in a long time, and when she had it had always been dark, cynical humor, the kind that came with her life. They hadn't openly mocked each other in a while. She glanced over at him and said, "Well, excuse me, because I think I graduated from the Jack Bauer School of Self-Importance."
He grinned. She knew that grin like she'd known that look. It was the one he always used when things had been backward, absurd, or bizarre but good. When she would do stupid things like walk into a door or yell at the TV during a Padres baseball game when Mark Kotsay would come up to bat. Or when Kim and/or Teri would surprise him with something totally unexpected. That grin was seen less and less these days and she was glad for it. "You may have," he told her, "but you were always my favorite student."
"Well, yeah, sucking up to the teacher helps." They talked like that for maybe ten minutes more, but there was an undercurrent of sadness in it all. They knew the humor was ill-timed and temporary. Under the surface they still had to talk about his drug addiction and faltering relationships, her broken heart and her uneasy bureaucratic status. Every time they tried to discuss it, however, they never found answers. The angst weighed them down and there were too many ways to duck out, to leave it all behind. They just weren't ready, not now, they had been through enough. They just needed to live, and to love, but they knew it would never last that long before the cracks began to show in the surface.
-you gave me something to realize
you're so far from that cause you pretend
never thought I'd see you fall apart
never thought I'd look into your eyes-
When Jack had returned from his undercover stint, Liz had been upstairs with the boys, as she called the Division bureaucrats. She knew he was coming back, but couldn't walk out of that meeting if she wanted to keep her job. Besides, Jack had to go through debriefings and all that before he was officially cut loose, so she figured she had time to kill. She could read transcripts later if she wanted to know what she had missed. Meanwhile, she had to listen to Ryan Sealey talk about organizational efficiency and resist the urge to bang her head on the conference table. That was when her pager had gone off.
She checked its face and realized it was Chase Exen, Jack's new partner. He had been handpicked for the job by herself and Jack, when the field ops unit had been created. He also kept giving her all the information she could ever want about Jack, and didn't hesitate to pick up the phone and make the call when things went wrong. Shaking her head – it was too early for him to be done with the debrief, what was it now? – she stood and interrupted Sealey in mid-speech. "I need to go," she said. "I've been paged down to CTU."
Chappelle, Sealey, Green and the others glanced at her. They knew she was a career CTU officer and that she'd been in the thick of all the trouble the first two times. Also, because she was Jack's superior now and had pushed to put him in the field unit along with Tony, Michelle and the others that had come together, anything that went wrong with it was a direct reflection on her. She knew now how Mason felt. "Anything wrong?" Chappelle asked her. She shook her head. "I won't know till I get down there." There was a beat of silence more before Alberta said, "You'd better go, then," being the only one to cut Liz any slack, presumably because they were both woman. Nodding, Liz had walked out of the conference room and made quick time back to CTU. Chase, like always, was waiting for her to show up.
"What's going on, Chase?" she said.
His face looked worried, in that intense-set way that he was. "He's insisting on talking to you," Chase said.
"We were going to talk…" Liz began, but Chase cut her off.
"No, he means right now. Before the debrief. He won't do anything before he talks to you."
Hiding the alarm bells going off in her psyche, Liz nodded. "Where is he?" Chase told her Jack was back in his office, and the two of them together started in that direction. By the time Liz made it to the stairs she was practically running.
On the landing Chase got her attention. "You going to be okay in there?" he'd said, and she had raised her eyebrows. What the hell kind of a stupid question was that?
"Of course I'm going to be okay," she'd told him.
He nodded. "All right. I'll be here."
Liz had turned and headed for the door. She should have listened to what the question had really meant, but she had just left, and blown through the door, and wondered why he'd asked such a stupid question.
"Jack?" she'd said. "I'm here. Why are you being such a pain in the ass today, huh? You should be celebrating…"
That was when she'd found him, sitting on the couch, curled up on it, actually. He'd looked at her and told her to shut the door. She did, starting to get worried: he'd already turned the glass opaque and he was sitting in the dark, for Christ's sake. But before she said anything, he called her over. Only when she was sitting right there next to him did she realize something in his eyes was wrong. He had come back different. She reached for him, and he grabbed her hand in mid-motion and held it tight, as her heart began to pound.
When he spoke his voice was torn: "I need to tell you something…"
-'cause you seem so hollow
hollow like me
when you see my eyes
do you hide your face
you seem so hollow
hollow like me
when you see my eyes
do you turn away-
Jack put the phone down on the nightstand. "She just got back from going to the mall with some friends," he told Liz, relaxing just that small fraction he always did when he was assured as to the safety of his daughter. "She says to tell you hi."
"She always does," Liz said, smiling. Of course, she knew where Kim had more than likely really been. Kim had told her about Chase long ago – Kim had taken to using Liz as a sort of confidant, since a lot of the time her father couldn't be reached or wasn't in a reachable state, more likely. She would never tell. Besides, Jack was a smart man, he would figure it out soon enough. "Good to know she's doing all right. I mean, she'll make a good operative someday. Just like her father."
He chuckled. "Hopefully not just like me." She laughed with him, and Jack pulled his longtime friend turned lover close enough so that she could put her head on his shoulder. They predated a lot of things. His career at CTU hadn't even started when he had met Liz. She had simply never left since. He had left her, three years ago, and that had been the stupidest mistake of his life since leaving Teri and ending up with Nina. He had done a lot of stupid things personally, as many as the brilliant things he'd done professionally. No matter what, however, Liz had never given up on him. Not even at a time like this.
"Do you think about it?" he asked her. "You ever wish for a normal relationship, you know, like Michelle and Tony?"
Liz arched an eyebrow. "Jack, I am not capable of a normal relationship."
He exhaled. "Yes, you are. You've just never actually had one. Knowing what it's like before and after…" He paused. "Do you ever want something like that? Where we actually go on dates and take trips and leave annoyingly romantic voice mail messages?"
Now Liz laughed out loud. "You do that, you'd better not be calling my office."
Jack didn't so much as bat an eyelash. "You're ducking the question," he told her. She stared at him for a second, but then she realized he meant this as a legitimate inquiry, and that she would have to come up with an answer. It was serious now.
She grumbled slightly. "Do I want normal? Of course I do. I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone. I'm just a few years younger than you, Jack, it's getting to that point where you look at a relationship in terms of, you're either going to get married and die of old age together, or you're not." Jack was looking at her interestingly now, but she ignored him. "But you don't do that. If you want to start showing up with flowers or planning island vacations, go ahead. I hear Tony and Michelle had a really good time in Hawaii. If you don't want that, that's fine too. I understand that since we lost Teri, you'll never love the same way. Neither will I. All I really want is to be with you, whatever the hell that means is up to you."
There was silence between them for a moment.
"We should start trying it," he said. "We can't live like this."
"No," she replied, "But we do."
Another moment passed before she spoke again. "We're not ready for the happy ending yet, Jack. Too much work to do. When you get straight and figure out where you want to be in life … when I stop feeling like I'm living George Mason's life and take control … then we'll talk about cute moments. We have other things to do first. Our work isn't done."
"No," he said, "It isn't."
They glanced at each other in the darkness.
"What are we doing?" she asked.
He paused. "Salazar cuts his new deal tomorrow. I have to go down there. Aren't you and David," he said, referencing the assistant she'd been assigned when she took Mason's job, "going over more paperwork with Michelle?" She nodded. Jack noted the look on her face. "Hey," he told her. "That's not now. This is today. Today, right now, this moment, we can relax."
She reached across him to the clock on the nightstand.
"Today's almost over," she told him. "Now it's time to worry about tomorrow."
He glanced over at the clock.
"Not for another eleven minutes." At her rolled eyes, he chuckled. "You don't know. They could be the last eleven minutes of your sanity."
"That's right," she said. "You don't know. You never do."