Jack was standing at the counter sipping his coffee and skimming the front page of the newspaper when Teri came in after seeing Kim to the school bus. She reached past him into the cupboard for a juice glass.

"Bus on time?"

"Yes, it was fine. I really like this new driver." She opened the fridge and sniffed the juice. She hadn't had time to shop for a few days. Her new client was pretty demanding, but the work was exciting.

"Hey," he said, turning the paper over. "Do you think you could stop by Goodwill for me today? I'm going to need some plaid shirts."

"I don't know, I'm pretty swamped. I haven't even had time to do groceries. Why do you need plaid shirts?" She poured the juice and took a tentative sip. It was still okay. She started to get the cereal box out.

"I have some meetings today and it closes at six. I could pick up some groceries later," he offered.

"Okay. I'll see if I can swing it. Wait. Did you say plaid shirts from Goodwill? Jack, are you going again?" She put down the still-empty bowl and looked at him. He frowned and looked down. "You just got back a month ago."

"I know. I'm sorry. This shouldn't be a long one." He dropped the paper and rinsed his cup in the sink.

Teri sighed. "Okay, fine. Whatever. When do you leave?"

"Day after tomorrow." He grabbed his car keys, wallet and phone from the table. "Listen, I've got to run. We'll talk about it tonight, okay?" He kissed her quickly on the forehead as his phone started to ring.

"Bauer," he answered, waving awkwardly with his elbow as he opened the door with his back, his hands full of phone, jacket and briefcase. "Lock up!" he mouthed. Teri nodded and followed him to lock the door. She stood and watched him through the glass as he juggled his things, got into the car and drove away, cell phone to his ear.

She didn't mind his absences as much as she used to, and his new gig at CTU allowed him to be home more often. They were grooming him for management, and there was less undercover as a result. In some ways, it was easier when he was gone. She and Kim had their own routine. His schedule when he was around was so erratic it was difficult to keep things on an even keel. Not that it wasn't great to have him around. Of course, she would rather have him here than gone, and Kimberly loved any chance to spend time with her father.

The times she really hated were now, when he was distracted by getting ready to go, and the first few days after he came back. Sometimes it took a while to re-adjust to him being around again.

At least he had gotten better at leaving his work behind. The first few times he came back, she felt as if he were almost a different person. But now it was as if he could just flip a switch as he pulled into the driveway. It was almost always the same old Jack who walked through the front door.

The bedroom was a different story. That had taken some getting used to, but she had to admit, the sex had gotten a lot better since he'd been working undercover. They were both more willing to try new things. Teri told herself it was because they both went so long without while he was away. After all, he'd promised he would never cheat on her.

--------

"I ran into Teri Bauer today," Crystal dropped her shopping bags and settled into the café chair. "Non-fat latte, no foam," she told the waitress.

"Oh, yeah. Her daughter's Kim, right? The blonde one?" Barb stirred some sweetener into her cappuccino and encouraged her friend to continue.

"That's right. Nice kid. You'll never guess what she was doing."

"What?"

"Well, I'm in charge of the costumes for Hansel and Gretel, right?" Barb nodded.

"So I was at Goodwill looking for things for the Woodsman. And there was Teri in among the plaid shirts."

"So?"

"Well, she was buying them for her husband. Can you imagine? Buying shirts for Norm at Goodwill?"

"Ohmygod. What is he? A farmer?"

"Well, she says he's a salesman, but I don't know. He can't be making good money if that's where she has to shop for him."

"Maybe they spend all their money on the school," Barb suggested.

"Maybe. But god – plaid shirts. From Goodwill. To actually wear." She shuddered, flipping her long blond hair over her tanned shoulder.

--------

"Okay, Marc, we've got company" Stephane handed the other officer his binoculars. They'd been sitting in the barn for hours. It was a good location to keep an eye on Dieter Gutowski's place – hidden in the aspens, but with good sight lines, and off the main road to Dieter's property.

There had been a handful of bombings and vandalism at the gas wells in Northern Alberta recently, and Dieter was not shy about sharing his views on the oil industry. He claimed they had poisoned his cattle and children by flaring excess gas to relieve pressure in the pipelines. So far, they hadn't been able to connect him directly, but everyone felt it was only a matter of time. The two RCMP officers had been called in to help out the local detachment as part of a special task force.

"Thanks." Marc trained the glasses on the yard in front of the house across the field. "Looks like it's showtime," he whispered to himself.

A tall dark-haired man opened the driver's side door of a blue pickup truck and stood up, zipping up his down vest over his thick fleece. "Okay, there's Denis." They saw their informant walking towards the house. Then the passenger side door opened and a slim blonde man in a plaid shirt and jeans got out. He looked cold. "Who's he got with him?"

His partner was already snapping photos through his telephoto lens. "I don't know. Denis didn't say anything about anyone else."

A few minutes later Stephane had uploaded the photos and was on the phone. "Merci, Vero. À plus tard."

He turned the screen of the laptop towards the other man. "Okay, the other guy is coming up as Jack Brownlee. Ex-U.S. Army, served in the Gulf. Explosives expert. Did time for a weapons charge in L.A. a few years back. Known member of White Fist, a white supremacist group in the U.S. No known eco-terrorist associations though."

Marc nodded, glancing at the screen before returning to the binoculars. The three men were standing in Dieter's kitchen. "Well, he could have other connections to Dieter. He's got more in common with the survivalists than the environmentalists."

"Where's the wire? How come we can't hear the wire?"

"Ah, tabernac! There must be something wrong with it." Marc fiddled with the settings on the laptop. The men sat down at Dieter's table. After what seemed like hours, the wire signal kicked in.

"…So you think Tuesday, then, Jack?"

"Yeah."

"That okay with you, Dieter?"

"I think so, yeah. You boys better get out of here. The horsemen are everywhere these days."

"Okay. See ya."

All three men stood up and Denis and Jack got back in the truck. They turned around in the yard and drove back towards home.

"Sh-t. Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see what Denis has to say," said Stephane, watching them go.

"Yeah. And have a word with Jim. That wire sucked." Marc started to pack up their equipment when he paused and looked at the screen more carefully.

"Stephane. Get Marie-Claire on the phone."

"Why? What's up?"

"She might want to know that we've got an American undercover operative sticking his nose into our case."

--------

A little while later Jack slid into the booth at Tim Horton's and gratefully wrapped his chilled hands around a large double-double. He'd forgotten how cold it could get up here. It was only September, for chrissake. Still, he'd already managed to have a meeting with his main target. He leaned back in the booth.

Two men came in wearing coveralls and workboots. "Hey, Francine," one called to the middle-aged woman with the tightly permed hair behind the counter." His accent was slightly French-Canadian. "Hi Stephane, Marc. The usual?" She started pouring coffee.

The men began to laugh and joke in French as they took their coffees and sat in the booth behind Jack's. Jack didn't speak much French, but he was fluent in Spanish and there was enough similarity that usually he could get the gist of a conversation in the other language. He tried to follow along just for the practice, but the men's accents and slang made it almost impossible. He'd almost given up when he heard the words "Dieter" and "Stony Plain" and "Mardi." He knew Mardi meant Tuesday. He tensed. These guys knew something.

In the next booth, Marc nodded almost imperceptibly to his partner without interrupting the flow of the conversation, which was mostly about hockey and girls. He had seen Jack react to the planted words. Not much; the guy was good, but enough that someone with the right training could pick up on it. Marc was an experienced officer, and knew exactly what to look for. He was an excellent observer. He had recognized Jack from photos that one of his men had brought back from a training course with LAPD's SWAT team. The man had raved about what a great instructor Bauer had been, and the name and face stuck in Marc's mind.

Stephane got up to get a refill. His plan was to trip just before he got back to Jack and force an introduction, but Jack stuck out his foot and he spilled more coffee than he meant to.

Jack was on his feet in an instant. "Oh, man, I'm sorry!"

Stephane rolled with the change in plan. This could give him the upper hand. "F-ck, man, what is your problem? Look what you made me do, f-ck."

"Jeez, take it easy. You didn't burn yourself did you?" Jack grabbed some napkins and started mopping up the coffee on the table.

"Aw, merde, it's all over my new boots, f-ck."

"Sh-t. I'm sorry. I just needed to stretch my legs a bit. I didn't even see you there. Hey, let me buy you a beer. I'm Jack."

"Yeah, you're Jack sh-t man –"

Marc decided it was time to step in. "Hey, Stephane, take it easy. Your boots are going to get plenty dirty tomorrow, and this dude's just offered us some free beer, right, Jack?"

Jack and Stephane stared off for a minute before Stephane backed down. "Yeah, okay. Sorry, man. I just got these boots. They're really expensive, you know?"

"I apologize." Jack looked at the boots. "They are nice. Vibram soles?"

"Yeah, the whole deal."

"Where'd ya get them? I'm going need me a new pair pretty soon."

"Marks' in West Ed. You a pig?"

"Excuse me?" Jack's voice held a hint of menace.

"Rig pig, man. You working the rigs?"

"Yeah, I mean, no, not yet. I'm looking for work. I was doing construction, but I hear the rigs pay better."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Buy us that beer and we can hook you up. The company we work for is hiring, f-ck."

The men headed into the parking lot and climbed into an extended cab pick up truck with a gas company logo on the side. Marc steered the truck out of the service road and onto the main highway, turning off on onto another service road leading to a hotel. The town was small. This cluster of generic chain gas stations, pizza places and motels had drained the business out of the downtown and made it look like every other place along the highway. The hotels were doing double-duty as apartments for oilfield workers and business was booming. Almost every vehicle in the parking lot was a truck with a logo. Marc and Stephane had established their cover as welders for one of the companies that had experienced vandalism. It gave them a reason to travel around the countryside and park their truck without raising suspicion.

The bar was dark and smokey, with pool tables and VLTs on one side and tables covered with terrycloth on the other next to a forlorn-looking dance floor. The men ordered a pitcher of beer, some chicken wings and nachos before Jack picked up a pool cue.

As Marc racked up, Stephane chalked his cue and leaned against the table.

"So where are you from?" he motioned to Jack to take the first shot.

Jack made a nice clean break, sinking several balls.

"California, originally. I traveled a bit with the Army when I was younger, and followed a girl up to Vancouver. Didn't work out, so I thought I'd try here. How about you guys?"

"We're from Sudbury. That's in Ontario," he explained, seeing the blank look on Jack's face.

"But you guys speak French?"

"Franco-Ontarian. There's craploads of us up there." Jack nodded. Whatever. He wasn't here for a geography lesson.

As the evening progressed the three undercover operators downed more beers and sank some more balls and downed more beers and plied each other for information, all the while carefully planting some of their own. The pussyfooting around was stupid, really. Normally the Mounties would have identified themselves and shared their information, but Marie Claire had been pissed off when Marc had told her about Jack. She wanted to call around and find out if CSIS knew someone from a branch of the CIA was operating on Canadian soil. And if they did, why no-one had thought to tell her. She'd been fighting for greater inter-agency co-orperation for months. You could guarantee this jackass wanted something different from their informant than they did, and it could jeopardize her operation. Her instructions had been to maintain their cover and find out what they could in the meantime.

When Jack finally fell onto the orange polyester coverlet on his motel room bed, the room was spinning slightly. Holy sh-t, those guys can drink. He had to remember to eat more. He'd got some good intel, though. He'd call it in after he'd sobered up a bit. He turned his head and focused on the clock. Still time to call Teri.

Normally he didn't. It was easier to maintain his cover if he kept Brownlee and Bauer very separate. But there was no one here who knew Brownlee, and no one around. The chances of his phone being tapped were almost nil. He decided to take a chance. He reached out a hand and dragged the phone towards him on the bed, punching in the numbers.

She answered right away.

"Hey, sweetheart."

"Jack! I didn't think you'd be able to call."

"Yeah, I'm in a motel. You can't call me though."

"Had a good night, Jack?" She smiled. She could hear that he'd been drinking.

"Yeah." He smiled wryly. "Sorry to call you like this. I just wanted to hear your voice."

"Any way you call me is a good way, Jack." Teri leaned back from the computer where she'd been working late. "God, it's so good to hear your voice!"

"Really? I've only been gone two weeks," Jack teased. "It's good to hear yours, too, sweetheart. How's Kim?"

"Good, good. She was one of the crows in Hansel and Gretel at school."

"Crows?"

"Yeah, they wanted everyone to have a part. I videotaped it for you. She can't wait to watch it with you."

He felt the dull ache of guilt at missing yet another event in his daughter's life. He'd been gone so much. "Thanks. I can't wait either. I'm sorry I missed it. How's work?" He remembered she'd been starting a big project just before he left.

"Great! I mean, you, know, the usual hassles, but I've had tones of ideas for the space, and George has been fantastic at giving me free reign." She told him a bit more about the restaurant she was designing, making him laugh at the antics of the crew. He was always amazed at how she just took everything in stride. She was a great manager, with just the right mix of firm but fair. Her sub-contractors adored her, as did he. They talked for a long time, but it seemed far too short. Reluctantly, he decided he had to wrap it up and call in his intel.

"Listen, Teri, I'd better go."

"I know. I should finish this up and get to bed here, too." They paused, enjoying the comfortable silence.

"I miss you."

"I miss you too, sweetheart. Give my love to Kim, okay?"

"Okay."

"Keep the home fires burning," he joked.

"I will, Jack. You come home safe, you hear me?"

"I will. Love you."

"Love you too." Jack held the phone to his chest for a few moments after the line went dead, savoring the contact. He longed for her so much. He knew guys who'd lost their marriages after they started doing undercover missions. There were so many temptations. No, he thought, More than temptations. He allowed himself to enjoy them, now. He'd grown used to it and found tricks to help him keep what he had to do separate from his real life, so he no longer felt like he was cheating on her.

But instead of growing apart from Teri, the more time he spent apart from her, the more he found himself falling deeper in love. Some of the other women may have been better in bed, but not one of them could match her sense of humour and her unwavering support for him. You are one lucky bastard, Jack Bauer.

He slowly hung up the phone and dragged himself to the shower. Time to get back to work.