A/N – Story is set around a month after Day Three. My OC Alex Myers may or may not be involved in later chapters (not sure if I want to put him in).

A month had passed. Four weeks since Chappelle died, Thirty one days since he killed Nina Myers. Two fortnights since he had chopped off Chase's hand. Countless hours and seconds since his drug addiction had been found, since he had lost Claudia, since Tony had been arrested for treason, although few believed him truly guilty. Jack Bauer was laid on his bed, with so much on his mind that he felt the mother of all migraines starting. It didn't help that he was going cold turkey with the heroin, trying to free himself from the sweet misery he had inflicted on himself for both professional and personal reasons. Professional in the sense that it had helped him gain access to the inner circle of the Salazar cartel. Personal in the sense that it had surely eased his pain since the death of his wife, Teri, all those years ago.

"Are you sure about this?," Michelle Dessler spoke on the phone at CTU. She had not expected this call, and she certainly had not expected a call about Jack. Sighing quietly as the person on the other end adamantly repeated themselves, Michelle could only agree.

"Fine, just let me go talk to him first, OK?," she asked, and thanked the person politely as they agreed. The news that she was going to deliver to Jack was something that she felt a friend should deliver, to help ease the blow. Grabbing her coat on the way out, she stopped and thought of Tony. Hoping that he wouldn't hear the news too soon, and hoping that he was doing OK in prison, she hurried towards her car. They had only given her a couple of hours, which was all they could have given her, and she knew that she had to be quick.

Jack, now sat up at the end of his bed, was staring out of his window. His apartment overlooked one of Los Angeles' busier roads, and he found himself counting the number of black cars that went past. It seemed that almost half of the cars were black, as if they were part of a huge funeral convoy snaking it's way slowly through the city. He looked across the street and saw the grey buildings on the other side of the road. Wondering who lived in the apartments, he considered the possibility that their life wasn't like his, that they never had to deal with death and evil. Hearing a knock at the door, he first decided to ignore it. That usually worked, but the person was stubborn. Hearing her voice, recognising her, he wondered what the hell she wanted. Her voice sounded worried, anxious, and he knew that he had to find out what she wanted. Opening the door, he noticed that she looked upset, her eyes watery. Gesturing for her to go inside, he wondered if something had happened to Tony.

"What is it, Michelle?," Jack asked, worried for his friend. He had seen her upset many times over the past few weeks, but this time felt different. Waiting patiently as Michelle wiped her eyes, his mind and heart were racing.

"It's about you, Jack," Michelle replied, dreading to tell Jack the news.

"Me?," Jack responded, surprised. He wondered if it was about the drug use.

"We got a call from Division about half an hour ago, Jack. They said...they said that the police are gonna arrest you," Michelle said, her voice breaking.

"Arrest me? For what?," Jack spoke, his voice slightly tinged with anger. He hadn't done anything wrong, and Division knew it!

"I dunno, Jack, they just said that LAPD are coming in a couple of hours to take you into custody," Michelle replied. She looked at his face, and she knew that deep down inside him, a part of him was relieved. Part of him wanted this, to finally be judged for his actions in protecting the innocent. It didn't matter to him what the outcome was, so long as his friends, Kim, were safe and protected from evil.

They had sat in silence for the past hour, like a prisoner on Death Row on the morning of his execution. The fateful knocks on the door sounded like deep thuds, and Michelle squeezed Jack's hand gently as he looked at her. Standing up slowly, he made his way to the door and opened it. Two police officers, one male and one female, were stood there. Reading him his rights and placing handcuffs on his hands as they did so, Jack asked them what the charges against him were.

"The murder of Nina Myers," the female cop replied, and Jack couldn't believe it. Were they really going to consider putting him in jail for the rest of his life for killing the creature he once had loved, before hating with so much passion? As they led him into the elevator, he looked at Michelle, gazing into her eyes for as long as he could before the elevator doors closed.