Lonely
Every morning she would rise, usually around seven am, depending on whether or not she had to be at work. Most days she went in, even if it was her day off, the emptiness of her house providing little stimulus for her overactive mind. Breakfast consisted of a solitary cup of black coffee; without it she found she could not function throughout the day.
It would take her a good half hour to fight her way through the rush hour traffic, anxious to be out of the glare of the morning sun and settled behind her desk, the one place she could come close to calling 'home.'
She received the usual stares and hushed whispers upon her entrance to the main floor, her heels clicking loudly amidst the silence as she made her way towards the comm. unit, head down. They soon grew bored, returning to their stations to chat amongst themselves about their weekends, or their latest date. There was nothing out of the ordinary about Chloe O'Brian showing up three hours before her shift started, so why should they waste their time talking about it? At least, that's what she'd told them after she'd grown sick of the taunts and 'helpful' comments about how maybe she should go out once in a while and then she wouldn't be so keen to rush into work the next day.
They'd been shocked; Bill had even taken her aside and reminded her not to bring her personal life into work. She'd muttered something about not having a personal life, and not understanding why on earth they should find her apparently boring existence so interesting when their lives were evidently much more exciting. He hadn't been able to answer that.
She checked her email- nothing new. Her in-tray would be overflowing with discs, paperwork and files, nothing she couldn't sort through within the next hour or so while everyone else dragged themselves in after the weekend.
At eleven she would break for coffee, always taking the long route to the break room as though reluctant to leave the floor, even for a minute. The tiny room would always be deserted; in this job, no one had time for a break. She even felt a small pang of guilt as she went about making her coffee, knowing that every minute spent up there could be valuable time down on the floor. But no one ever came looking for her.
When everyone went for lunch, Chloe refilled her coffee mug and carried right on working, ignoring the rumble of her stomach; she had learned to tune it out so that it blended in with the hum of the computers. Occasionally, Nadia would offer to buy her something but she always declined, head bent over the keyboard, eyebrows knitted in concentration.
Around three o'clock she received the somewhat perfunctory phone call from Bill, asking her would she please come up to his office. She would lock the system before slowly pushing back her chair and ascending the stairs, knowing exactly what he wanted to talk about but opting to feign ignorance and brush away his concerns. He'd taken to having these little 'chats' with her, playing the role of the father and the concerned boss to perfection. Every day he would ask her the same thing, and every day she would reply with the same two words: I'm fine.
She wasn't, though, and he could tell. She knew he could tell, which made it even worse. But Chloe had never been one to spill her secrets, preferring instead to stay quiet and hope that maybe everything and everyone would just go away.
By eight, two hours after her shift finished, she would pack up and brief the night shift, not leaving until she was sure they understood what they needed to do. She encouraged them to ring her on her cell if they desperately needed her; while she would have preferred the evening to herself, she would never hesitate to help. Most nights she never received a phone call.
Chloe didn't watch TV, instead spending the evening in front of the laptop, working away on a file that maybe she hadn't had time to finish at work. Or maybe she just hadn't looked at it during the day, to give her something to do to pass the evening.
She hated the night. Even she needed to sleep, and no matter how late she pushed her body it would always scream at her to take a rest. The curtains in her bedroom remained drawn throughout the day, the bed clothes tossed back as though in haste, her scruffy old t shirt that she used as a makeshift nightdress lying carelessly on the carpeted floor.
She quickly changed for bed, then brushed her teeth and stared at herself in the mirror for a good ten minutes, analysing every contour of her face, the dark bags under her eyes more noticeable after each passing day.
As she climbed into bed, her eyes quickly scanned the face of her digital clock. It alerted her with its luminous green hands that it was indeed four am, and yes, she did really have to be in work in four hours.
But that wasn't what she sought, what she needed.
Sat beside the small clock, face down, was a small photo frame. Although she was blinded by the darkness, Chloe's hands felt along the bedside table until her fingers closed over the frame's familiar metal edges, pulling it gently towards her for fear of dropping it to the floor.
It was the only photo she had. Deep down, she knew she had no right to have any pictures at all, which is why she kept this safely in her room, locked up like a secret treasure, something she knew was there and could reach for when she needed comfort.
Holding it to her, Chloe lay back in the bed, her eyes finally able to close now that she knew he would be watching over her.
…
He spent so much time at work that he had moved in several changes of clothes, as well as various toiletries, and stashed them in the cupboard at the far end of his office. As head of field ops, it was important to be prepared for any situation, and packing for the unknown had become a habit that he was accustomed to. Bill hadn't said a word as he'd watched Jack and Curtis heave two heavy boxes up the back stairway of CTU. He thought perhaps they hadn't seen him; the hour proving too ungodly for the majority of CTU's staff. But then Jack's eyes had met his, and Bill knew better than to push for answers.
The days blended into one; Jack woke up to find himself lying on the leather couch in his office, half covered by a tatty blanket, the previous day's clothes now creased beyond recognition. He would drag himself down to the men's shower room, emerging ten minutes later looking slightly less bedraggled.
On days where his presence was not required in the field, Jack tried to busy his troubled mind with the mountain of paperwork that had been slowly piling up on his desk and was now threatening to collapse. Paperwork wasn't his favourite job, but he had to find something to do in order to put off the inevitable return to his apartment.
He tried to limit the visits to twice a week, leaving the office only when he was in dire need of clean clothes. There was no way the cleaning staff at CTU were going to wash his clothes; as a matter of principle and pride Jack bundled the dirty linen into his car and grudgingly drove the fifteen minute journey home.
Home. That was not a word he could associate with the one bedroom, sparsely furnished, poorly decorated apartment that he had found himself living in on his return from China. It had taken a while to be cleared for active duty and God knows he had enough money to afford a better place, but it just didn't mean anything to him any more.
Bill usually poked his head around the door before he left, telling him to have a good evening but knowing that he wouldn't. Bill would smile sadly before turning and walking away, leaving Jack to brood over a sea of untouched files.
In the dead of night, when the silence of CTU became too much, Jack often slipped out of the back exit and into the parking lot. He would start the car and drive out into the night, a destination unclear in his mind but somehow his heart led him to the one place he never thought he could belong, the one place he had no right to be.
He would park the car opposite the house, away from the streetlamp. He would lock the doors and black out the windows, away from prying eyes. This was the only time he could think. Even at the office, there was always something demanding his attention, but now, in this haven he had created for himself, Jack sat quietly, his gaze alternating between the illuminated house across the street and the dog-eared photo he kept in his wallet.
The lights would blaze until well after midnight, yet Jack remained where he was, tiredness evading him. With a small smile on his face he traced the outline of her face, wishing with all his heart that he could be in there with her, touching her, holding her. But she didn't belong to him.
He wouldn't drive away until he was sure that all the lights in the house were off. One by one they blinked out, leaving a solitary glow radiating from an upstairs window which he took to be her bedroom. Once satisfied that she had fallen into what he hoped was a dreamless sleep, Jack replaced her photo in his wallet and restarted the car, edging slowly back out into the deserted streets of Los Angeles.