Title: Bare

Author: Kat Spencer

Summary: Renee is still dealing. Jack is ever patient. AU. Four months after the events of Broken.

"Days will come when you don't have the strength,
and all you hear is you're not worth anything,
wondering if you ever could be loved,
and if they truly saw your heart
they'd see too much."
~Beautiful
MercyMe

Chapter One
Stripped

Jack had left Renee sleeping while he went to the grocery store. She had suffered a nightmare the night before and she was finally sleeping soundly. Jack finished putting the groceries away and made his way upstairs to check on her.

She wasn't in bed, but he did hear the shower running. He went back downstairs to read the newspaper he had gotten while he was out. Thirty minutes later there was still no Renee. It worried Jack. He knocked on their bathroom door. The shower wasn't running anymore, but he knew she must still be in there.

JRJRJRJRJR

"Go away, Jack."

"What happened?"

She didn't want him to see her like this. Here she was sitting in the shower, fully clothed, and soaking wet. What the hell had happened? Did she even know? She was beginning to shiver, but she didn't care. She deserved it.

"Please, just go. I'll be out in a while."

"You can't keep shutting me out, Renee."

His words stung. What did he expect from her? She stood up from the shower floor. Anger bubbled up in her as she opened the shower door and stepped out. Her tank top stuck to her, and her jeans left puddles of water on the tiled floor. She unlocked the door and threw it open. She knew she had surprised him.

"Is this what you wanted to see, Jack? Me falling apart?" She was yelling. He let her.

"Renee," his voice was low and calm and he tried to reach out and touch her face.

"Don't touch me."

"I told you you're not alone in this."

"I can't do this. I don't know what made me thought I could." Liar, he's standing right in front of you.

"You can do this. We can do this."

"I don't want to. It's too hard and it hurts too much! I don't want you to waste anymore of your time on me, Jack. I can't keep asking you to pick up the pieces when it will only fall apart again anyway. It's not fair to you."

Tears fell down her cheeks. He wanted so badly to reach out and wipe them away. "I'll decide what's fair for me, Renee." He began to walk towards her. He put the familiar 'Jack Bauer' face on. It wasn't to scare her, nor intimidate her. It was to show her that he was serious.

She backed up until there was nowhere else to go, she was in between the counter and Jack.

"Jack."

He could tell from her voice that she wasn't scared. She was just tired and weary.

"No, Renee, I've made my choice, and my choice was and is you. I can't help how I feel…I-I can't help that every time I look at you, every time I see that ghost of a smile, every time I see the old Renee again, every time you come back to me I fall a little more in love with you."

"Please, don't do this." She looked away from his gaze.

"What? Don't be honest? Renee, there's nothing I can be but honest with you. I can't promise you that it will always be easy, because we both know that it won't. I can promise you that you will never be alone. I want this to work. I need this to work. Let me love you, you might find that you feel the same way."

Her blue eyes closed and she sighed. She wondered how he could feel that for her. "Renee," he prodded after several moments.

Her eyes opened and he was still there, up close and personal. "Jack…I just don't want to disappoint you, I don't want you to realize that months or years down the road that you made a horrible, terrible mistake. I couldn't live with myself if I hurt you like that." She tentatively touched his face.

"You could never let me down. You're faithful, loyal-"

"I'm neither of those things right now." Her hand left his face.

"You are."

"I'm not, I feel like the most disloyal person in the world. I feel as if I can't even trust myself. I feel like you'd be better off without me."

Jack shook his head. "You're the best part of my day. You are making my life more bearable, more livable. I'm living the kind of life I've wanted to live for years. You can't ever know how much I owe you, Renee."

"How much you owe me, Jack? No…don't say that, I owe everything to you, and you owe me nothing."

Jack smiled. "We'll agree to disagree. So…what do you say?"

She sighed again. It was several moments before she answered. "Jack…I want this to work, too. I just don't know if I can. I don't think I'm worth loving, or even worth having around. I can't make you go, and I don't think I'm strong enough to leave. So if you can deal with all of that, I guess I can too."

"You are worth so much more than you give yourself credit for, Renee."

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. He let his hand drift from her face to her waist. He pulled her close and they hugged. Her hands found his hair as they pulled apart. It may have been four months, but they had never been anything more than a kiss on her forehead or cheek. He could tell by her eyes she wanted to change that.

"Renee-" he warned, not wanting her to do anything she would regret.

"Jack…just shut up and kiss me."

He smiled for a split second before her lips met his in a frenzied, carnal way. They both needed this, this release. The nightmares that kept her up at night didn't matter, all the pain, all the hate didn't matter. All that did matter was just beyond her closed eyelids. His hands that were pulling her close, his body pressed to hers, his lips were what mattered right now. The world could have ended and Renee wouldn't have noticed.

The pair pulled away minutes later. He could tell there was hesitation to go any further, and he would respect that.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be sorry."

Renee closed her eyes, his hands were now loosely around her neck. Their foreheads rested together. There was no need for words. Neither one minded that all they did was make-out like hormone driven teenagers. It was nice, in a way, not to have to add the kind of intimacy that came with sex into their already complicated relationship.

It's not that Renee didn't want to be with Jack. She would be crazy not to want to be with him. She just wasn't ready for it. Not emotionally ready, she hadn't even uttered those three little words and just about shut him out when he did.

"You should change," he told her, breaking into her reverie.

"Yeah." She reluctantly let go of Jack and left the bathroom. She went to their closet and dressed.

She found him sitting on the bed, waiting for her. He took her hand and pulled her to him, putting an arm around her shoulder. "What do you want to do today?" He asked.

Besides have a breakdown? She shrugged.

He cleared his throat. "I thought maybe we could talk about the doctor again."

"You really want to start that with me today, Jack?" The magic that was there from their kiss was definitely gone now.

"Renee, please don't. I don't mean to upset you-"

"Shut up, Jack. I've already told you, the shrink thing doesn't work," she told him as she untangled herself from his arm and stood, placing her hands on her hips.

"I just want you to have the help that you need."

She felt the misplaced anger rising again. "Then why the hell are you here?" She saw the hurt in his eyes. She regretted the words immediately. "Jack, I didn't-"

"I know you didn't. And for the record, I really don't know…you haven't told me one damn thing, Renee."

"What is it that you want to hear, Jack?"

"Anything at all!" His voice raised an octave as he rose to his feet.

Her face hardened. "You want to hear that six years ago I had to endure beatings for a cover? He broke my ribs, a cheekbone, I went to the hospital with a concussion, he held a gun to my head on more than one occasion, and a knife to my throat on many others. There were a few times when he tried to rape me, Jack. He was controlling, he was domineering…he…" She closed her eyes and dropped her head.

"Renee," Jack said as he stepped closer to her. She met his gaze again.

"No, you wanted to know. I'm letting you know. Do you want to see the scars that he left?" She asked as she began to lift the bottom of her shirt. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

"Don't-" Jack pleaded as he grabbed her hands and held them tightly in his own.

"And then…then four months ago, I get the chance to set things right again. It's as if it started all over again. This time to keep my cover he actually got what he had wanted all those years ago. I slept with him. I let him think that it was okay for him to put his hands all over me. For those moments I made myself believe that maybe I deserved it."

"You didn't. Laitanan was a monster, Renee. You didn't deserve any of it. He raped you, Renee. No woman deserves that." His face searched hers for recognition and understanding. There was none.

After several moments, she spoke again "Jack…all I wanted was my life back…all I wanted was to erase what happened with me after the FBI. I thought if I did that-"

"That you'd save yourself," he said quietly. She remembered those words, he had spoken something like them the night she took matters in her own hands and handled Wilson.

She nodded as sobs wracked her body. He pulled her close and she hung onto him for dear life.

"And now, here I am, more screwed up than ever," she said several moments later.

"No, no you're not. We'll do this, Renee. You'll do this, you'll get through it."

It seemed like he'd been saying this or something like it every day since they'd been together. She knew that he would say it however long it took. She once again reminded of his dedication.

She closed her eyes and let herself fully relax in Jack's arms. She was safe here. She could rest. She was broken. She was damaged, but she was sure of one thing: the man holding her wasn't going to let her go. He was here to stay. Maybe someday soon she'd be able to admit that she was in love with him too, even if it were just to herself. Yes. Someday soon, she hoped.

TBC in Family