Kate wasn't as concerned as she used to be, when she woke to find that Jack had already left. He'd come over after debriefing last night and done the same things he always did when he got back from an undercover mission. They had eaten take-out Chinese from the carton while watching the ten o'clock news and the subsequent trashy movie. Then he'd predictably sidled up to her a little and slipped his arm around her. It was then that she began to get a little suspicious.
It was a far away concern that she tried not to give thought to; but he had been strange towards her since he'd been working on the Salazar case. She had thought he had wanted to call things off between them the first time he returned, after a six month stint with the brothers; but he had told her that everything was okay, and she had believed the lie.
He'd never fully got over Teri; however close they got to one another, however much she let him in; he could never let go of the past. So he could never really move on. It was his desire to live in the present; constantly fighting with himself about how to act and how to feel, that made Kate suspicious of her boyfriend.
Now he had some clan tattoo and she wasn't stupid enough to mistake the track marks on his arms when they made love that night, even if he was pretty quick to flick off the lights. Jack wasn't the same man that she'd fallen for; he didn't have that frightened child inside that required her to show some compassion… or her love. He had become stronger as the years went by and he isolated himself from her and his daughter. It was as if he wanted to revert back to how he was before Teri. When he was eighteen years old in the army, fighting for his country and finding his place in the world. Kate had begun to realise that his place wasn't anywhere near where she was headed these days.
Kate went downstairs to find a note on the kitchen table; he didn't want her messing around in his study; he'd be back sometime after lunch and he enjoyed last night. It had been written a little more tactfully than that; and he didn't get defensive until the end, but Kate knew him well enough to see through his phrasing. Why did she still make the effort to hide her comprehension of him? He liked to be the hero, he liked to be a fighter… he was only ever a lover on his terms. Why did she always feel it was better to let him think she was innocent to his intentions? Why was it always best to know Jack Bauer, and not know him at the same time?
Kate filled a bowl with cereal and poured a cup of coffee; the apartment seemed empty without him, but it was something she was gradually becoming used to again. After Marie was convicted of her crimes; their father found it difficult to cope with what he thought of as his failings, and absorbed himself in work to hide from the world… to hide from her. She saw both of the men in her life, needing her and fighting their desire to just ask for her sympathy and understanding.
Bob and Jack were loners. They hid in their work and they were secretive and… and Kate was getting damn sick of waiting on the next disappointment. She pushed the bowl across the table and clattered her coffee cup onto its saucer, then stomped across the hall to Jack's study.
The door was locked. He'd told her to keep out, knowing she wouldn't even try the door if he was working, but he'd left that added security, in case… well, in case she did what she was about to do.
Taking the spare key from under the edge of the painting on the wall, where she'd seen him hide it; she unlocked the brass lock and held out her arm in case he had left other secure measures in there for her. No alarm sounded, no water dropped onto her head… perhaps she was exaggerating his evasiveness a little too much. It looked as it always did; neat, clean, ordered and completely unobtainable. Not unlike the man himself.
She laughed to herself and made silent excuses for disrespecting his privacy as she leafed through paperwork and printed e-mails and letters. He was working on some drugs bust on a pretty grand scale and she wasn't surprised that he'd fallen in with the wrong people. After all he'd done that before, hadn't he?
He'd done something else before too.
As Kate took the simple white envelope from the desk drawer she knew in her heart that she shouldn't open it. Something was telling her it wasn't good news that she'd happen upon in such a deceitful way. It was never advisable to let Jack Bauer realise you had a handle on him.
"Jack, I just need to know, it is really dumb to ask this, and I do trust you… but you are away so long, honey and…" He'd reacted angrily, turning to her with a look of distrust and dismay.
"What are you trying to say, Kate? Why don't you just come out with it? You think I've been screwing around don't you?"
He hadn't been back then. He'd had a right to fly off the handle at her for suspecting him. It was only sixteen months since Teri was murdered. How could she think he could… have someone else? That's exactly what he did have; in her. Only his heart still belonged to Teri and sex and friendship couldn't replace the sheer enormity of what he had felt for his wife.
Kate wasn't a replacement for Teri; she wasn't even making the transition between wife and after-wife life easy. She didn't fill the hole in his soul; didn't remove the ache in his chest and how was he meant to love someone that… never asked anything of him. He couldn't complete the job, which had started the day he died. The victim no longer needed protection; he was no longer the hero. He was just her boyfriend, and how much did that mean at the end of the day?
"I just, well you've cheated before, Jack."
"Yeah and look what I got for it. I lost my wife, Kate. I lost the woman I love and my child…"
Kate was hurt by his words. She knew he would always love Teri but there was no thought for how she felt when he spat his anger at her that night. It still hurt, every time she watched him staring into the middle distance… listening for her to try her key in the lock, to come back to him; to cheerily walk into their living room, kiss his cheek, ruffle his hair and tell him he was working too hard.
She never came home and Jack filled his time waiting for her to arrive, by working and becoming someone else.
It worried Kate that her boyfriend continued to hide in these undercover ops as though it was easier to play someone else than be who he was. He didn't act frightened and hurt anymore… this never changed the fact that he still was. He was always looking for a way out.
As her fingers began to tremble on the piece of paper decorated with little vine like scrolls at top and bottom; she realised he'd already found it… at least, until the next time the ghosts came to call.
The words flowed through her eyes and over her lips mutely, until all that could be articulated were a sob and a string of whimpers, as silently her face was coated in sticky saltwater.
"You shouldn't be in here." He said with a gruff tone to his voice, which seemed far too familiar lately.
"What is this, Jack?" Kate said waving the letter in his direction without meeting his eyes. She wiped at the tears defensively and moved towards him in order to be able to grab his left hand in hers, flip it over and press the crumpled letter into his palm.
"And you told me that I was being stupid to think that your eye would wander while you were away. Tell me Jack, do you even love me at all?" She wasn't at all ready for his response.
"No, not the way I loved my wife. I tried to… I tried so hard to give you what you wanted, Kate."
"All I wanted was you, Jack. Did I ever ask you for anything, other than your honesty? I'd do… I've done so much for you… I hurt too you know, Bauer. You don't have a monopoly on pain, you know."
"Your sister was a terrorist and your father doesn't talk to you anymore… tell me how that is in anyway on the same level of pain that I feel everyday?"
"If you'd just let me help you…"
"When are you going to get it, Kate? You don't help me. None of your meddling has ever helped me. You try to be all pally with my daughter…"
He scowled at her tears as though they mocked him with every swell of her sobbing chest. How long would he have hidden this if she hadn't have found the evidence?
"The two of you get together and think you can make the past go away, making a future never takes away the history…"
"So you chose to recreate it? Who is she anyway? Some undercover cop you are working with, or one of those dealers you spend so much quality time with now. Don't think I don't know about your habit, Jack…"
Suddenly he was scared again. He had thought he'd kept that particular secret well-hidden, and one thing was for sure, Kim wouldn't get to know about it; even if he had to go to extremes to keep Kate quiet.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" He said with the venom, she remembered him showing her sister once.
"You going to hurt me too, Jack? You going to shut me up, because all this honesty hurts, doesn't it? Makes you want to go for the needle again, doesn't it Jack?"
"Kate, shut up before you say something you'll regret."
"What? Like, I love you. I regret that one now, that's for sure… does she tell you that? Does Claudia love you, Jack? Does she love you like Teri did?"
The fire in his eyes made her tremble and as he walked towards her, she found herself moving back… backing away from the man that, until that morning, had been everything to her; even if she already knew in her mind that the feelings weren't reciprocated.
"Jack, what are you doing? This is crazy…" she felt her hip bang against the desk and knew that there was nowhere left to run. "Jack?"
"You don't know anything about me, Kate. I didn't want to hurt you. I tried to keep up this… this relationship stuff for you. You don't understand the world I have to live in Kate. You don't understand what I have to go through everyday…"
"I don't care anymore, Jack. You have been lying to me for too long. Claudia understands though, does she? She knows what you are?"
"She knows who I am, she knows what I do."
"What she gets high with you, Jack? You share some special place where nothing can touch you, where you can't miss your wife anymore."
Jack wore a scowl across his thin lips and his right eye began to squint a little, the way it always did when he was about to act in a way that normally would disturb his sensibilities.
"You shouldn't have come in here, Kate. The stuff I'm working on is classified…"
"Same as your habit, I presume." She wanted to hurt him now. She'd loved and cared for him for over a year and a half and now he was telling her that it meant nothing to him, that she'd never made a difference.
"I don't know what you are talking about. I hope you have some evidence to back up your claims?" At this outrageous fallacy, Kate found it impossible not to react. Grabbing his right hand she used her left to yank up his sleeve and show the needle marks that she'd spotted weeks before.
"Then is this the evidence you require, Agent Bauer?" she sniped. Jack tugged his arm away and moved backwards while he pulled his shirt back down to cover his arm, and his secret.
"You'd be dead if it weren't for me!" he snapped at her maliciously.
"Just like Teri, yes."
It was one step too far and Jack couldn't help his moment of madness. He stepped in and as their angry eyes met; Kate was too focused on him to notice his left hand raising up to slap her face.
She fell awkwardly and hit her head on the side of his beech wood desk. The spatters of blood would stain the pale wood and those reports couldn't be handed into Chappelle's office when they looked like that.
Jack picked up the files on his desk and the laptop from on top of it. In over a year, the only thing he brought home to Kate's place was work. The toothbrush didn't matter. He closed the door of the study for the final time and as Kate began to come round and feel the trickle of warm blood run down her face; the sound of the front door closing told her how he really felt.
Kate pulled herself up and walked to the bathroom; as she looked at her damaged face in the mirror, she couldn't even bring herself to hate him. He'd saved her life, just to live with her as a ghost for the next year or so. He was pitiful and it would all get worse before it got better.
"Good luck to you Jack, you really will need it."
It was a far away concern that she tried not to give thought to; but he had been strange towards her since he'd been working on the Salazar case. She had thought he had wanted to call things off between them the first time he returned, after a six month stint with the brothers; but he had told her that everything was okay, and she had believed the lie.
He'd never fully got over Teri; however close they got to one another, however much she let him in; he could never let go of the past. So he could never really move on. It was his desire to live in the present; constantly fighting with himself about how to act and how to feel, that made Kate suspicious of her boyfriend.
Now he had some clan tattoo and she wasn't stupid enough to mistake the track marks on his arms when they made love that night, even if he was pretty quick to flick off the lights. Jack wasn't the same man that she'd fallen for; he didn't have that frightened child inside that required her to show some compassion… or her love. He had become stronger as the years went by and he isolated himself from her and his daughter. It was as if he wanted to revert back to how he was before Teri. When he was eighteen years old in the army, fighting for his country and finding his place in the world. Kate had begun to realise that his place wasn't anywhere near where she was headed these days.
Kate went downstairs to find a note on the kitchen table; he didn't want her messing around in his study; he'd be back sometime after lunch and he enjoyed last night. It had been written a little more tactfully than that; and he didn't get defensive until the end, but Kate knew him well enough to see through his phrasing. Why did she still make the effort to hide her comprehension of him? He liked to be the hero, he liked to be a fighter… he was only ever a lover on his terms. Why did she always feel it was better to let him think she was innocent to his intentions? Why was it always best to know Jack Bauer, and not know him at the same time?
Kate filled a bowl with cereal and poured a cup of coffee; the apartment seemed empty without him, but it was something she was gradually becoming used to again. After Marie was convicted of her crimes; their father found it difficult to cope with what he thought of as his failings, and absorbed himself in work to hide from the world… to hide from her. She saw both of the men in her life, needing her and fighting their desire to just ask for her sympathy and understanding.
Bob and Jack were loners. They hid in their work and they were secretive and… and Kate was getting damn sick of waiting on the next disappointment. She pushed the bowl across the table and clattered her coffee cup onto its saucer, then stomped across the hall to Jack's study.
The door was locked. He'd told her to keep out, knowing she wouldn't even try the door if he was working, but he'd left that added security, in case… well, in case she did what she was about to do.
Taking the spare key from under the edge of the painting on the wall, where she'd seen him hide it; she unlocked the brass lock and held out her arm in case he had left other secure measures in there for her. No alarm sounded, no water dropped onto her head… perhaps she was exaggerating his evasiveness a little too much. It looked as it always did; neat, clean, ordered and completely unobtainable. Not unlike the man himself.
She laughed to herself and made silent excuses for disrespecting his privacy as she leafed through paperwork and printed e-mails and letters. He was working on some drugs bust on a pretty grand scale and she wasn't surprised that he'd fallen in with the wrong people. After all he'd done that before, hadn't he?
He'd done something else before too.
As Kate took the simple white envelope from the desk drawer she knew in her heart that she shouldn't open it. Something was telling her it wasn't good news that she'd happen upon in such a deceitful way. It was never advisable to let Jack Bauer realise you had a handle on him.
"Jack, I just need to know, it is really dumb to ask this, and I do trust you… but you are away so long, honey and…" He'd reacted angrily, turning to her with a look of distrust and dismay.
"What are you trying to say, Kate? Why don't you just come out with it? You think I've been screwing around don't you?"
He hadn't been back then. He'd had a right to fly off the handle at her for suspecting him. It was only sixteen months since Teri was murdered. How could she think he could… have someone else? That's exactly what he did have; in her. Only his heart still belonged to Teri and sex and friendship couldn't replace the sheer enormity of what he had felt for his wife.
Kate wasn't a replacement for Teri; she wasn't even making the transition between wife and after-wife life easy. She didn't fill the hole in his soul; didn't remove the ache in his chest and how was he meant to love someone that… never asked anything of him. He couldn't complete the job, which had started the day he died. The victim no longer needed protection; he was no longer the hero. He was just her boyfriend, and how much did that mean at the end of the day?
"I just, well you've cheated before, Jack."
"Yeah and look what I got for it. I lost my wife, Kate. I lost the woman I love and my child…"
Kate was hurt by his words. She knew he would always love Teri but there was no thought for how she felt when he spat his anger at her that night. It still hurt, every time she watched him staring into the middle distance… listening for her to try her key in the lock, to come back to him; to cheerily walk into their living room, kiss his cheek, ruffle his hair and tell him he was working too hard.
She never came home and Jack filled his time waiting for her to arrive, by working and becoming someone else.
It worried Kate that her boyfriend continued to hide in these undercover ops as though it was easier to play someone else than be who he was. He didn't act frightened and hurt anymore… this never changed the fact that he still was. He was always looking for a way out.
As her fingers began to tremble on the piece of paper decorated with little vine like scrolls at top and bottom; she realised he'd already found it… at least, until the next time the ghosts came to call.
The words flowed through her eyes and over her lips mutely, until all that could be articulated were a sob and a string of whimpers, as silently her face was coated in sticky saltwater.
"You shouldn't be in here." He said with a gruff tone to his voice, which seemed far too familiar lately.
"What is this, Jack?" Kate said waving the letter in his direction without meeting his eyes. She wiped at the tears defensively and moved towards him in order to be able to grab his left hand in hers, flip it over and press the crumpled letter into his palm.
"And you told me that I was being stupid to think that your eye would wander while you were away. Tell me Jack, do you even love me at all?" She wasn't at all ready for his response.
"No, not the way I loved my wife. I tried to… I tried so hard to give you what you wanted, Kate."
"All I wanted was you, Jack. Did I ever ask you for anything, other than your honesty? I'd do… I've done so much for you… I hurt too you know, Bauer. You don't have a monopoly on pain, you know."
"Your sister was a terrorist and your father doesn't talk to you anymore… tell me how that is in anyway on the same level of pain that I feel everyday?"
"If you'd just let me help you…"
"When are you going to get it, Kate? You don't help me. None of your meddling has ever helped me. You try to be all pally with my daughter…"
He scowled at her tears as though they mocked him with every swell of her sobbing chest. How long would he have hidden this if she hadn't have found the evidence?
"The two of you get together and think you can make the past go away, making a future never takes away the history…"
"So you chose to recreate it? Who is she anyway? Some undercover cop you are working with, or one of those dealers you spend so much quality time with now. Don't think I don't know about your habit, Jack…"
Suddenly he was scared again. He had thought he'd kept that particular secret well-hidden, and one thing was for sure, Kim wouldn't get to know about it; even if he had to go to extremes to keep Kate quiet.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" He said with the venom, she remembered him showing her sister once.
"You going to hurt me too, Jack? You going to shut me up, because all this honesty hurts, doesn't it? Makes you want to go for the needle again, doesn't it Jack?"
"Kate, shut up before you say something you'll regret."
"What? Like, I love you. I regret that one now, that's for sure… does she tell you that? Does Claudia love you, Jack? Does she love you like Teri did?"
The fire in his eyes made her tremble and as he walked towards her, she found herself moving back… backing away from the man that, until that morning, had been everything to her; even if she already knew in her mind that the feelings weren't reciprocated.
"Jack, what are you doing? This is crazy…" she felt her hip bang against the desk and knew that there was nowhere left to run. "Jack?"
"You don't know anything about me, Kate. I didn't want to hurt you. I tried to keep up this… this relationship stuff for you. You don't understand the world I have to live in Kate. You don't understand what I have to go through everyday…"
"I don't care anymore, Jack. You have been lying to me for too long. Claudia understands though, does she? She knows what you are?"
"She knows who I am, she knows what I do."
"What she gets high with you, Jack? You share some special place where nothing can touch you, where you can't miss your wife anymore."
Jack wore a scowl across his thin lips and his right eye began to squint a little, the way it always did when he was about to act in a way that normally would disturb his sensibilities.
"You shouldn't have come in here, Kate. The stuff I'm working on is classified…"
"Same as your habit, I presume." She wanted to hurt him now. She'd loved and cared for him for over a year and a half and now he was telling her that it meant nothing to him, that she'd never made a difference.
"I don't know what you are talking about. I hope you have some evidence to back up your claims?" At this outrageous fallacy, Kate found it impossible not to react. Grabbing his right hand she used her left to yank up his sleeve and show the needle marks that she'd spotted weeks before.
"Then is this the evidence you require, Agent Bauer?" she sniped. Jack tugged his arm away and moved backwards while he pulled his shirt back down to cover his arm, and his secret.
"You'd be dead if it weren't for me!" he snapped at her maliciously.
"Just like Teri, yes."
It was one step too far and Jack couldn't help his moment of madness. He stepped in and as their angry eyes met; Kate was too focused on him to notice his left hand raising up to slap her face.
She fell awkwardly and hit her head on the side of his beech wood desk. The spatters of blood would stain the pale wood and those reports couldn't be handed into Chappelle's office when they looked like that.
Jack picked up the files on his desk and the laptop from on top of it. In over a year, the only thing he brought home to Kate's place was work. The toothbrush didn't matter. He closed the door of the study for the final time and as Kate began to come round and feel the trickle of warm blood run down her face; the sound of the front door closing told her how he really felt.
Kate pulled herself up and walked to the bathroom; as she looked at her damaged face in the mirror, she couldn't even bring herself to hate him. He'd saved her life, just to live with her as a ghost for the next year or so. He was pitiful and it would all get worse before it got better.
"Good luck to you Jack, you really will need it."