Dr Rose Fullerton walked into her wood panelled office and twisted the blind closed from the midmorning sun. The air was still, and there was a dusty scent to it that made the insides of her nose and throat itch. The whole building had recently been closed for renovations and things like this always brought on her allergies. She stroked a hair behind her ear and then fiddled with the tiny emerald earring until her course black lock was finally released from its grip.
They were such a beautiful gift; however her boyfriend Michael had no way of knowing what an inconvenience they were. Rose wasn't used to wearing such ornate jewellery, especially to work. But the smile on his face every time he saw her wearing them was enough to make up for the mild irritation. She smiled to herself and stroked the front of her blouse to remove any creases, as though just imagining him there with her was enough to need the perfect look.
"Eh hmm!" Jack cleared his throat and looked away awkwardly. He hadn't thought she had noticed him sitting on her leather couch as he came in, but at first he'd barely noticed her either. She turned around, her face crimson with embarrassment.
"Oh, I didn't realise you were here… you must be…" She leafed through her calendar and notes for the name of her first appointment. Jack tried to smile but made no effort to help her out with such information.
The doctor looked at him sitting on the couch in dark blue jeans and a white and grey pinstripe shirt. His elbows rested on his kneecaps and his chin lay on the palms of his hands as he nervously covered his mouth and nose with a pyramid of fingers; therefore obscuring whatever expression he may have been wearing as he watched her perusing her own body in a daydream. If she hadn't had years of medical and psychiatric training she would have taken his posture and unresponsive attitude and arrogance or perhaps some kind of lewd manner. However finding the file on her desk, matching what she believed must be his name; she found herself analysing the most common behaviour portrayed by a victim of recent bereavement.
"Mr Bauer," she began, "May I call you Jack?" He glanced up warily and nodded.
"Jack, I see you have been asked to come here by your superiors… at CTU." Again this was greeted by a simple nod and another attempt at a smile. "You lost your wife last week."
"She was murdered… I didn't lose her… she didn't wander off in the market or disappear down the back of the couch with the TV remote… she's dead and…" He laughed at the irony of what he was about to say. "The woman I'd been having an affair with shot her."
Anger was boiling inside Jack, like nothing he'd ever felt before. With every word lately he seemed to spit flames at whoever he was near. Kim had gone to stay with Aunt Carol. She couldn't even bear to be around him.
"I'm sorry Jack; I know this must be very hard for you." Rose said in her calming yet authoritative tone. "We can talk about whatever you want… you have a daughter… Kim. Is that right?" Jack tried to smile. Kim was all he had left and he loved her so very much. He'd hated every moment of being away from her during their separation. Why had Teri made him leave?
"Yes, she's sixteen. She's coping a lot better than me." The doctor looked at him curiously. "I don't think I'm very good with my emotions. Kim finds it easier to let it out… I…"
"We all have very different ways of coping Jack; with any kind of trauma. Does she have friends or other relatives to talk to?" Again Jack nodded wearily. This was going to be a hard one. The tough guys were always the hardest to coax out of their shells.
Rose had been an occupational therapist with division for roughly a year and before that she worked in private practice as a psychiatrist. Her decision to move to this kind of work hadn't really been all her own and sometimes it showed. Michael had to relocate for his new job and Rose was asked to 'fish or cook bait'. She chose to take the less lucrative career path and with it, a chance on true love.
Jack sat back and ran his fingers through his cropped hair. His eyes, now less shadowed by his hands, were very red and raw looking. There were tiny scratches on his face where she presumed his nails had dug in as he wept. Love to Rose, felt glorious right now… and then there was the love she saw in Jack's eyes. How could the two be the same? At least he had his daughter.
"I suppose she blames me… she is staying with her mother's sister in Santa Cruz. They talk about stuff together I think." He was almost stuttering his words and the weakness he was showing in front of this complete stranger, was making him ashamed of himself.
"But is there anyone that you can talk to Jack?" she asked considerately. She noticed the way he shifted his glance and played with his fingers, pulling at little nubs of skin on the corners of his bitten down nails and trembling slightly as he pushed back the cuticle of his fingernails.
"I don't have any close family, my mother lives in Montreal; I don't see her very much." He said without meeting Rose's glance.
"Your father?" she asked watching his face contort with the pain of feeling.
"He died five years ago, natural causes. We never really got along anyway… I'm not very good at this stuff. I'm sorry… I didn't want to bother you but…" Rose reached out and patted his trembling hand as it rested on his left knee.
"Jack, I'm glad you came to see me. You have been through a lot and if you have no close family or friends to talk to, then it really is important for you to talk about this with me…"
"Why?" He snapped. "What good is it going to do, to tell you how bad I feel, how much it hurts and how much I blame myself… How will any of that make any difference?" he said losing steam. "None of it will bring my wife back, will it?"
It was the question that Rose always hated hearing. There was never an answer. Talking couldn't bring anyone back… no one could be reincarnated by discussing them for hours. Rose only had one answer… and it was never enough. She gave Jack this all the same.
"You can't bring her back by talking to me, but maybe you can let her live on in your heart… she'll always be there Jack, as long as you remember her…"
Jack had never wanted to come to this place. He'd never wanted to tell someone how much it hurt. Everything he had ever learnt told him that it was the most unwise thing to do… but then Division had this therapist for a reason… they told him it would help… what would help, was if they had never let Nina work for them in the first place.
"I should have done something." Jack said in little more than a whisper. "I should have been there."
"You were trying to help your daughter; I hear you are a very brilliant agent; but even you couldn't be in two places at once." Rose thought she was helping… maybe she was. Jack still wasn't fully past the anger stage yet but the guilt had him hooked harder than anyone she had met before.
"I could have had someone take care of her…" but his words trailed off as he remembered just who it was, he had asked to take care of his pregnant wife that night. A tear rolled down his cheek and he batted at it quickly, so as not to show any failing.
"Jack its okay to get upset, you know. I'm not going to judge you. In this situation I know it is perfectly normal to be weeping like a baby." Rose was trying to encourage him to show his pain in order to perhaps alleviate some of it. But once again all that met her words was anger.
"I tried to take care of them, I had to… I had to save Palmer… it was all such a mess and…" another tear fell and this time he let it. "And I should have put my family before my work. I let them down and I deserve this…" Rose handed him a handkerchief.
"You don't deserve to feel this way Jack. It's not about what we do and do not deserve…it's not karma. Your wife died in a tragic and devastating way… you found her yourself and that's not going to be easy to deal with…"
"How can I get on with my life? How can anyone expect me to just carry on when the whole world just caved in on me?" He wiped at his eyes with his shirt sleeve and sniffed hard. "My own daughter can't bear to be near me."
"You have to take it a step at a time. I'm sure that is what Kim is doing in her own way. You are feeling guilty and it is holding you back…"
"I am guilty." He said in an exasperated voice. "I could have stopped it. I should have stopped it…at noon that day when it all seemed like it was over." He was clearly in such a lot of pain but Rose didn't know how else to help him… the letting of bad blood always caused more pain… 'It gets worse before it gets better'.
"Hell, there were hundreds of other people who could have helped Senator Palmer… I should have taken my family home and…" His hands snapped to his eyes and the heels pressed into his eye socket as though he was trying to push the saltwater back where it had come from. "I should have been planning how to decorate the nursery now… not planning how to bury them."
Rose held back her own emotions. She had lost a baby once and it was the worst feeling she had ever had to encounter. What this man was going through was terrible indeed. Emotionally it seemed his past was littered with mistakes and until the previous week things had been coming back around for him. Now; as he had said himself, the world had fallen in around him. How was there a way forward?
"You may find the funeral tomorrow helps you." He glared up at the shrink as though she were the crazy one.
"Okay, maybe we should try and take this a little away from the bone." She held her breath a moment and then continued in an authoritative voice. "Jack, tell me what you did today." The look of mild contempt never left his face as he began to pull together his thoughts to answer the question.
"I woke up at six fifteen, I had nightmares…I couldn't sleep anymore, even though I've never felt so tired in my life." He paused unsure why he was being asked this stuff.
"Go on… keep telling me how you feel too if you can… that's really good." She sounded like she was talking to a small child, and was beginning to tense up, expecting him to get angry at her for it. He didn't… not this time.
"I changed into some shorts and a t-shirt and went for a ten mile run. Part of me thought the adrenaline might take the pain away… it's not that kind of pain." He waited for a response but found only an encouraging nod to continue. "I sat on the steps outside and read the obituaries in the Sentinel. Teri's wasn't in it today."
Jack was surprised that saying stuff like this really was beginning to relieve his pain. Just to stop thinking, to stop going over and over things in his head. Kim was right.
'Dad, you can't just sit there like that! Mom's gone. Anyone would think you were dead too. Get up and help me with dinner.' She was at the end of her tether. Of course she missed her mother, but she felt like she was losing her father now too. She had to be tough with him… it was the only way you got Jack to do anything.
'You find it so simple don't you Kim? Just get on with your life, just forget… She was my wife… I loved her for almost twenty years… all my adult life, I loved your mother. You might be able to forget her and go about like nothing happened…'
'Dad, I'm not doing that. I loved Mom… I love you…'
'Then leave me alone…' he had yelled at her; unsure whether he was angrier at her for trying to make him forget, or for still loving him after what he'd done. 'Go! Get out! Leave me alone Kim… leave me the hell alone and stop telling me what I should and shouldn't do! I can't let her go Kim… I can't. I'm nothing without Teri. She was everything that was good in my life. She was my joy… I have nothing now… just go away.'
Jack could hear the fight in his head as though it had just happened. Kim had gone away; right away… Carol had phoned several times to check on him; on his daughter's behalf… He never once picked up the phone.
"The phone rang again. I had to get into the house and my sneakers were filthy. Teri would have screamed at me, walking that dirt into the house, so I took them off in the hall and walked barefoot into the lounge. The answer machine cut in because I'd taken so long and… then I remembered again." He stopped and the tears were beaten away in a flash.
"It didn't matter what a mess I made around the house… it didn't matter if I stayed up all night watching baseball on full volume in the family room… I don't have a family anymore."
Rose handed Jack the box of Kleenex, but he refused it. He wasn't going to let go. Not yet anyway.
"Her message on the phone was so cheerful… she was always so happy go lucky; you know… rarely had a bad word for anyone and she could make anyone smile in a few moments notice." He paused and this time a few tears fell before he snatched a tissue from the little blue box. "I don't think I'll ever be able to smile again. It hurts to try. Like, they belonged to her not me. She evoked them… they were hers… now it's all gone. The joy is gone with her."
"What about Kim? Surely she brings you happiness Jack. Look at all you did for her; you must love her a great deal." Rose tried to find good memories for him, since he could only see the darkness.
"She has left. I hurt her… she thinks I don't love her." Rose looked concerned.
"Then you must tell her how you feel; Jack you should let her know that you love her and you aren't going to leave."
"She is safer, away from me…" For a moment Rose began to wonder if Jack had really, that is, physically hurt his daughter. It had been known for such a thing to happen and under the circumstances… "I just let her down. She wants to help… I know she loves me and wants to make it easier… I love her too much to let her put up with me anymore."
Rose's relief wasn't outwardly apparent but somehow she was glad he wasn't hurting Kim. It didn't seem right… he seemed like a good father and a good man. How could she break down the walls around him?
"Jack, you are probably hurting her more by not letting her in. She lost her Mom; she doesn't need to lose her Dad too." Could offering him comfort help ease his pain?
The thought of killing himself had been a regular guest in Jack's mind lately. He'd been drunk with a revolver and a bottle of pills last night… the nightmares didn't just start when he was asleep. He couldn't face putting his wife in the ground. He wanted to be there too.
"Perhaps you could talk to Kim tomorrow. If you tell her how you feel, maybe the two of you can find a way through this together?" Rose really thought she was helping. Instead she'd drawn on his fears even more.
"There is no way through this doctor!" Jack snapped suddenly angry again. "There is no way forward… and I can't go back. You and Kim have made that clear to me. The way I see it there is only one direction I can take things."
Jack stood up and turned the clock around on the coffee table. For the first time that morning, Rose saw a smile on his thin lips. Only it didn't hold the emotions that should go with a smile. There was no warmth or joy in it… it was a smile of certainty. Without warning Jack picked up his jacket and turned to face Rose Fullerton one final time.
"Times up, Doctor. Goodbye."
They were such a beautiful gift; however her boyfriend Michael had no way of knowing what an inconvenience they were. Rose wasn't used to wearing such ornate jewellery, especially to work. But the smile on his face every time he saw her wearing them was enough to make up for the mild irritation. She smiled to herself and stroked the front of her blouse to remove any creases, as though just imagining him there with her was enough to need the perfect look.
"Eh hmm!" Jack cleared his throat and looked away awkwardly. He hadn't thought she had noticed him sitting on her leather couch as he came in, but at first he'd barely noticed her either. She turned around, her face crimson with embarrassment.
"Oh, I didn't realise you were here… you must be…" She leafed through her calendar and notes for the name of her first appointment. Jack tried to smile but made no effort to help her out with such information.
The doctor looked at him sitting on the couch in dark blue jeans and a white and grey pinstripe shirt. His elbows rested on his kneecaps and his chin lay on the palms of his hands as he nervously covered his mouth and nose with a pyramid of fingers; therefore obscuring whatever expression he may have been wearing as he watched her perusing her own body in a daydream. If she hadn't had years of medical and psychiatric training she would have taken his posture and unresponsive attitude and arrogance or perhaps some kind of lewd manner. However finding the file on her desk, matching what she believed must be his name; she found herself analysing the most common behaviour portrayed by a victim of recent bereavement.
"Mr Bauer," she began, "May I call you Jack?" He glanced up warily and nodded.
"Jack, I see you have been asked to come here by your superiors… at CTU." Again this was greeted by a simple nod and another attempt at a smile. "You lost your wife last week."
"She was murdered… I didn't lose her… she didn't wander off in the market or disappear down the back of the couch with the TV remote… she's dead and…" He laughed at the irony of what he was about to say. "The woman I'd been having an affair with shot her."
Anger was boiling inside Jack, like nothing he'd ever felt before. With every word lately he seemed to spit flames at whoever he was near. Kim had gone to stay with Aunt Carol. She couldn't even bear to be around him.
"I'm sorry Jack; I know this must be very hard for you." Rose said in her calming yet authoritative tone. "We can talk about whatever you want… you have a daughter… Kim. Is that right?" Jack tried to smile. Kim was all he had left and he loved her so very much. He'd hated every moment of being away from her during their separation. Why had Teri made him leave?
"Yes, she's sixteen. She's coping a lot better than me." The doctor looked at him curiously. "I don't think I'm very good with my emotions. Kim finds it easier to let it out… I…"
"We all have very different ways of coping Jack; with any kind of trauma. Does she have friends or other relatives to talk to?" Again Jack nodded wearily. This was going to be a hard one. The tough guys were always the hardest to coax out of their shells.
Rose had been an occupational therapist with division for roughly a year and before that she worked in private practice as a psychiatrist. Her decision to move to this kind of work hadn't really been all her own and sometimes it showed. Michael had to relocate for his new job and Rose was asked to 'fish or cook bait'. She chose to take the less lucrative career path and with it, a chance on true love.
Jack sat back and ran his fingers through his cropped hair. His eyes, now less shadowed by his hands, were very red and raw looking. There were tiny scratches on his face where she presumed his nails had dug in as he wept. Love to Rose, felt glorious right now… and then there was the love she saw in Jack's eyes. How could the two be the same? At least he had his daughter.
"I suppose she blames me… she is staying with her mother's sister in Santa Cruz. They talk about stuff together I think." He was almost stuttering his words and the weakness he was showing in front of this complete stranger, was making him ashamed of himself.
"But is there anyone that you can talk to Jack?" she asked considerately. She noticed the way he shifted his glance and played with his fingers, pulling at little nubs of skin on the corners of his bitten down nails and trembling slightly as he pushed back the cuticle of his fingernails.
"I don't have any close family, my mother lives in Montreal; I don't see her very much." He said without meeting Rose's glance.
"Your father?" she asked watching his face contort with the pain of feeling.
"He died five years ago, natural causes. We never really got along anyway… I'm not very good at this stuff. I'm sorry… I didn't want to bother you but…" Rose reached out and patted his trembling hand as it rested on his left knee.
"Jack, I'm glad you came to see me. You have been through a lot and if you have no close family or friends to talk to, then it really is important for you to talk about this with me…"
"Why?" He snapped. "What good is it going to do, to tell you how bad I feel, how much it hurts and how much I blame myself… How will any of that make any difference?" he said losing steam. "None of it will bring my wife back, will it?"
It was the question that Rose always hated hearing. There was never an answer. Talking couldn't bring anyone back… no one could be reincarnated by discussing them for hours. Rose only had one answer… and it was never enough. She gave Jack this all the same.
"You can't bring her back by talking to me, but maybe you can let her live on in your heart… she'll always be there Jack, as long as you remember her…"
Jack had never wanted to come to this place. He'd never wanted to tell someone how much it hurt. Everything he had ever learnt told him that it was the most unwise thing to do… but then Division had this therapist for a reason… they told him it would help… what would help, was if they had never let Nina work for them in the first place.
"I should have done something." Jack said in little more than a whisper. "I should have been there."
"You were trying to help your daughter; I hear you are a very brilliant agent; but even you couldn't be in two places at once." Rose thought she was helping… maybe she was. Jack still wasn't fully past the anger stage yet but the guilt had him hooked harder than anyone she had met before.
"I could have had someone take care of her…" but his words trailed off as he remembered just who it was, he had asked to take care of his pregnant wife that night. A tear rolled down his cheek and he batted at it quickly, so as not to show any failing.
"Jack its okay to get upset, you know. I'm not going to judge you. In this situation I know it is perfectly normal to be weeping like a baby." Rose was trying to encourage him to show his pain in order to perhaps alleviate some of it. But once again all that met her words was anger.
"I tried to take care of them, I had to… I had to save Palmer… it was all such a mess and…" another tear fell and this time he let it. "And I should have put my family before my work. I let them down and I deserve this…" Rose handed him a handkerchief.
"You don't deserve to feel this way Jack. It's not about what we do and do not deserve…it's not karma. Your wife died in a tragic and devastating way… you found her yourself and that's not going to be easy to deal with…"
"How can I get on with my life? How can anyone expect me to just carry on when the whole world just caved in on me?" He wiped at his eyes with his shirt sleeve and sniffed hard. "My own daughter can't bear to be near me."
"You have to take it a step at a time. I'm sure that is what Kim is doing in her own way. You are feeling guilty and it is holding you back…"
"I am guilty." He said in an exasperated voice. "I could have stopped it. I should have stopped it…at noon that day when it all seemed like it was over." He was clearly in such a lot of pain but Rose didn't know how else to help him… the letting of bad blood always caused more pain… 'It gets worse before it gets better'.
"Hell, there were hundreds of other people who could have helped Senator Palmer… I should have taken my family home and…" His hands snapped to his eyes and the heels pressed into his eye socket as though he was trying to push the saltwater back where it had come from. "I should have been planning how to decorate the nursery now… not planning how to bury them."
Rose held back her own emotions. She had lost a baby once and it was the worst feeling she had ever had to encounter. What this man was going through was terrible indeed. Emotionally it seemed his past was littered with mistakes and until the previous week things had been coming back around for him. Now; as he had said himself, the world had fallen in around him. How was there a way forward?
"You may find the funeral tomorrow helps you." He glared up at the shrink as though she were the crazy one.
"Okay, maybe we should try and take this a little away from the bone." She held her breath a moment and then continued in an authoritative voice. "Jack, tell me what you did today." The look of mild contempt never left his face as he began to pull together his thoughts to answer the question.
"I woke up at six fifteen, I had nightmares…I couldn't sleep anymore, even though I've never felt so tired in my life." He paused unsure why he was being asked this stuff.
"Go on… keep telling me how you feel too if you can… that's really good." She sounded like she was talking to a small child, and was beginning to tense up, expecting him to get angry at her for it. He didn't… not this time.
"I changed into some shorts and a t-shirt and went for a ten mile run. Part of me thought the adrenaline might take the pain away… it's not that kind of pain." He waited for a response but found only an encouraging nod to continue. "I sat on the steps outside and read the obituaries in the Sentinel. Teri's wasn't in it today."
Jack was surprised that saying stuff like this really was beginning to relieve his pain. Just to stop thinking, to stop going over and over things in his head. Kim was right.
'Dad, you can't just sit there like that! Mom's gone. Anyone would think you were dead too. Get up and help me with dinner.' She was at the end of her tether. Of course she missed her mother, but she felt like she was losing her father now too. She had to be tough with him… it was the only way you got Jack to do anything.
'You find it so simple don't you Kim? Just get on with your life, just forget… She was my wife… I loved her for almost twenty years… all my adult life, I loved your mother. You might be able to forget her and go about like nothing happened…'
'Dad, I'm not doing that. I loved Mom… I love you…'
'Then leave me alone…' he had yelled at her; unsure whether he was angrier at her for trying to make him forget, or for still loving him after what he'd done. 'Go! Get out! Leave me alone Kim… leave me the hell alone and stop telling me what I should and shouldn't do! I can't let her go Kim… I can't. I'm nothing without Teri. She was everything that was good in my life. She was my joy… I have nothing now… just go away.'
Jack could hear the fight in his head as though it had just happened. Kim had gone away; right away… Carol had phoned several times to check on him; on his daughter's behalf… He never once picked up the phone.
"The phone rang again. I had to get into the house and my sneakers were filthy. Teri would have screamed at me, walking that dirt into the house, so I took them off in the hall and walked barefoot into the lounge. The answer machine cut in because I'd taken so long and… then I remembered again." He stopped and the tears were beaten away in a flash.
"It didn't matter what a mess I made around the house… it didn't matter if I stayed up all night watching baseball on full volume in the family room… I don't have a family anymore."
Rose handed Jack the box of Kleenex, but he refused it. He wasn't going to let go. Not yet anyway.
"Her message on the phone was so cheerful… she was always so happy go lucky; you know… rarely had a bad word for anyone and she could make anyone smile in a few moments notice." He paused and this time a few tears fell before he snatched a tissue from the little blue box. "I don't think I'll ever be able to smile again. It hurts to try. Like, they belonged to her not me. She evoked them… they were hers… now it's all gone. The joy is gone with her."
"What about Kim? Surely she brings you happiness Jack. Look at all you did for her; you must love her a great deal." Rose tried to find good memories for him, since he could only see the darkness.
"She has left. I hurt her… she thinks I don't love her." Rose looked concerned.
"Then you must tell her how you feel; Jack you should let her know that you love her and you aren't going to leave."
"She is safer, away from me…" For a moment Rose began to wonder if Jack had really, that is, physically hurt his daughter. It had been known for such a thing to happen and under the circumstances… "I just let her down. She wants to help… I know she loves me and wants to make it easier… I love her too much to let her put up with me anymore."
Rose's relief wasn't outwardly apparent but somehow she was glad he wasn't hurting Kim. It didn't seem right… he seemed like a good father and a good man. How could she break down the walls around him?
"Jack, you are probably hurting her more by not letting her in. She lost her Mom; she doesn't need to lose her Dad too." Could offering him comfort help ease his pain?
The thought of killing himself had been a regular guest in Jack's mind lately. He'd been drunk with a revolver and a bottle of pills last night… the nightmares didn't just start when he was asleep. He couldn't face putting his wife in the ground. He wanted to be there too.
"Perhaps you could talk to Kim tomorrow. If you tell her how you feel, maybe the two of you can find a way through this together?" Rose really thought she was helping. Instead she'd drawn on his fears even more.
"There is no way through this doctor!" Jack snapped suddenly angry again. "There is no way forward… and I can't go back. You and Kim have made that clear to me. The way I see it there is only one direction I can take things."
Jack stood up and turned the clock around on the coffee table. For the first time that morning, Rose saw a smile on his thin lips. Only it didn't hold the emotions that should go with a smile. There was no warmth or joy in it… it was a smile of certainty. Without warning Jack picked up his jacket and turned to face Rose Fullerton one final time.
"Times up, Doctor. Goodbye."