Author's Note: This takes place right after the 24: Live Another Day finale. Some spoilers from the last episode. Read at your own risk. Because of the conditions these characters are in, this fic is pretty dark. However, this is only the first chapter of something that will become happier if anyone wants me to continue it. Please leave a review whether you liked it or not. I love constructive criticism. I do not own 24 or any characters in 24. Those rights are reserved to FOX. Thank you!
The tautology of a life exiled in torture. Whether this was spoken or felt through the silence, the nuances in shifting bodies and tones brought more dread with every passing moment. But the second feeling, one Jack was too afraid to name, crept up on him just as steadily as the plane's propeller spun. It was the feeling that washed over him as the muscles in his face tightened, lips forming the unfamiliar shape of a smile. Relief.
He thought science should fight against it, but while he wasn't feeling excessive physical pain, he sanctioned his mind to go back into the deep, dark, painful place science labeled as his memory. First, he was enamored with Teri's bouncy brown curls as she tried to hold in her excitement. "I'm pregnant! " she shouted, her presence full of giggles and a feeling much stronger than happiness. She lept from her seat, "You're going to be a father! Honey, we're finally going to be parents." Jack wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her lips, cheek, neck, shoulders, as he smiled and spun her around. "You're going to be the most wonderful mother," he whispered as his lips found hers again. Skip ahead to twenty-two years later, when he saw himself sitting across Secretary of State James Heller. The tan leather seat didn't seem to fit his body, and fighting the impulse to fidget, he scanned the room and all pictures evenly dispersed on one of the four walls As he reached the wall directly behind him the door opened and a goregous woman appeared.
"Jack I'd like you to meet my daughter Audrey," He said.
Jack nodded, the need to move evaporated as she stepped closer. "Nice to meet you."
"Honey, this is Jack Bauer, my newest employee. You'll be seeing a lot more of him."
"I'm sorry to interrupt but there's a call on line three," Audrey said. Jack was still staring at her. "I'll show you out Jack.". He turned and shook Heller's hand before following this new woman into the unknown.
Closer and closer to the present his memories drew. For all his ability to read people, there was one who cracked all of his training and confidence in that feild, one who he could never read. Singlehandedly he drug her down the same path to hell he'd already traveled by fighting for the greater good; a fight that they had somehow miscalculated, ending up with shattered pieces of themselves.
"Jack listen, I know we've said a lot of things to each other and you've made promises to me…" she began. "I just want you to know that I'm not going to hold you to them. It's been a terrible day and I know we say things in the moment, and I just, I don't want you to-"
She hadn't noticed he was moving closer until she felt the warmth of his hands caressing her face, an impossible contrast of callus against her smooth skin. His lips touched hers, she opened her mouth tracing her tongue over his in an immediate response. Her left hand found the back of his head, messing his hair as he picked her up, headed for the bed.
That's when the pain hit, a force that continuously beat him. They all met their end by the pull of a trigger. He couldn't protect them, the ones he loved most. In his mind, he deserved every day of torture he was about to endure. The best part? He could never hurt anyone again. A small feeling of relief bubbled up again; he was paying for his sins.
*** One month and 5 Days Later
In China, Jack never spoke a word. Twenty months of what would be silence if it weren't for his screams of pain. This wasn't China. He enjoyed taunting his captors, with the expense of more pain; not that the pain ever subdued. It lacinated in his bones and thoughts, the emotional toll equal while sleeping. A month in Russia led him to prefer the physical pain. It was familiar, kept him awake. He learned to focus on it, turning his thoughts and emotions off and drenching himself in the severity of the cut, gash, or drug being injected into his body. When able to speak, he cursed, the only words rolling off his tounge were filled with vile hate. "Fuck you." he whispered as the knife found his abdomen.
He wasn't sure if his stomach was still intact with the rest of his bruised and aching body. The knife continued to find shards of skin to pierce, digging deep into the muscle at his abdomen, and jerking everything but bone from his insides. His screams only made the pain worse.
"Oh that's right, Mr. Bauer, you used a blow torch, " the thick Russian accent, Dimitri, left to a nearby room and returned, blue fire already igniting. He smiled, and touched the fire to Jack's open wound, assimilating his cries of pain. It felt as if he had calculated how long Jack could stand this without death.
"Stepan, go get the medical supplies. We don't want Mr. Bauer's suffering to end. Not before he's seen what we've done to her." The young man went and did as he was told.
Jack's vision was blurred, so when she appeared completely unclothed except for a navy blanket draped over her shoulders, held together in between her breasts with purple and red hands, nothing registered. He squinted, making her features sharper. There was dried blood trickling down her swollen face, hair that went past her waist, also clumped with the red substance. It almost blended into the color at the ends of her hair, but not quite. She had trouble keeping her balance, and that's when he took notice of her legs. Dirt, blood, and unnatural yellows, blues, and purples encompassed the bottom half of her body. Slowly, as if she was battling paralysis, her hand found it's way over her mouth and she sunk to the ground. "What the hell." she screamed, unvarnished terror and hysteria rising in her voice. "Jack," she wimpered. After taking in the sight of him, she slapped Dimitri. "Fuck you, you son of a bitch!" Anger took a visible form on her body and flowed through her veins.
Dimitri smirked, wiping off the area where she hit him. "Your boyfriend here said the same thing." He leaned closer in to her ear. "And you'll pay for that later," he whispered.
Jack had been shot. That feeling of shock, knocking you backwards and losing the ability to breathe, to form a coherent thought wasn't even a strong enough comparison to describe it. Leaning forward he tried to lessen the proximity of his body from hers, but he couldn't move.
"Fix him," a voice behind Renee said, handing her tools to sew him up and enough gauze to mummify him. She rose and took them, shaking so hard she dropped them twice.
When her face was almost touching his, he lifted his head up to her eye level. "Renee," he whispered, or cried. The sound coming from his mouth was not his own. It was too weak and terrified.
"Be still."
Gradually, their captors emptied the room until Jack and Renee were left with each other, their emotions, and their demons.
Words weren't enough, so neither of them spoke for a while. Jack had connected some of the pieces while she tried to stop the bleeding and sew him up. Both were teary eyed and Renee avoided eye contact. She silently grabbed Jack's torn shirt in a nearby corner and slipped it on.
"I'm so sorry," she muttered before finally looking into his eyes. His face was laden with pain, emotional and physical. He was waiting for an explanation. Where had she been since his arrival? Why was she alive? "The men - if you can even call them that- the men here are very possessive. Something happened." She shifted her body weight a few times using the ground to balance. "I was in the hospital for a month. There was someone guarding me at all times and one of the doctors was…Forget it." Jack's impulse control fell short as he reached out and slowly tucked several stray hairs behind her left ear. Renee swallowed, relaxing into his touch. "After," she continued, "They wanted to makes sure I was in immeasurable pain before you saw me."
"I thought you were dead." he whispered.
"Surprise…I'm still alive. But I can't…" Her voice trailed off and Jack's arm reached out and pulled her to his chest. In silence, she welcomed his embrace and rested her head there until being jerked away half an hour later.
Growing up, Renee loved the feeling of the cold concrete floor, or refrigerator door, on her cheek when she was sick. It coined the sensation of difluence. The contrast between her body heat and the floor brought a comfort only found when fever struck. "Like an ice pack on a bruise," her father used to say when he found her sprawled out on the bathroom or kitchen tile, wrapped in a blanket. While the circumstances were vastly altered, the same philosophy applied. Pain seized her ribcage first, knocking her to the ground. Then she felt it in her lungs. Gasping for air and attempting to stand, she grabbed her captors foot, twisting it and bringing him down to the ground. Soon, there were three of them, kicking, punching, biting, and undressing her.
"You like this Jack?" one of the men asked before breaking her nose. She wanted to tell Jack it was okay, but she couldn't breathe. She wanted to explain to him how the ground felt soothing on her bare skin, but she could feel herself drifting out of consciousness.
*** Los Angeles: Same time
Chloe sat across an empty booth, glancing between her coffee, the clock, and the muted red carpeting beneath her tarnished black combat boots.
"Chloe?" a familiar voice behind her asked before walking into her vantage point.
"Thanks for coming," she responded as Kim took the seat across from her. They took the next couple minutes and studied each other while making small talk about Teri and Toby (Kim's children). Kim's light blonde hair stopped at the round of her breasts, and she was sporting a dark blue sweater that matched her eye color and black dress pants. Her eyes appeared more tired than their last encounter, as did Chole's. Chloe's hair was a dark mess, but her subtle makeup reflected something more. She wore jeans with multiple holes in them and a black tanktop. A dark leather jacket laid in her seat to her right. "You're dad was pardoned by President Heller the day he surfaced. He saved a lot of lives, including mine."
Kim tried to suppress the smile on her face. Picking up her coffee, she took small sips while she gathered her thoughts. "That's great. I just don't know if I'm-"
"He's been captured by the Russians." Chloe said, sadness more visible and deep than Kim had ever seen it.
Several beats passed before Kim spoke. "That's not as great," Her voice cracked with her words, any sign of happiness obliterated. "What happened? Just so I can know or cope or something."
Chloe balled up her fists and closed her eyes, suppressing the guilt and tears she felt weighing on her. "He gave himself up for me. It was his life for mine. I finally have a plan to get him back."
The first thing Renee felt was a trembling, gentle hand. It moved up her leg as if scared to apply any pressure until a thin fabric covered her hipbone and backside. Then the hand redirected it's focus. A strap was constraining her shoulder, first her left, then her right. Was someone dressing her? She wondered until her thoughts were confirmed by two shakey hands pressing into the uppermiddle of her back; she felt a battered bra holding up her breasts. Now she could feel the shape of the hand; it was large and callused, both thumbs bent out of place, broken. She willed her eyes to open but blackness was still there heavy on her eyelids. Whoever dressed her stood up now and walked to the opposite corner of the room (she tracked the footsteps) and back. A thick felt blanket was then draped on her back. This time her eyes opened,
"Jack?" she whispered, not sure if her voice was audible. He picked her up and sat her against a wall, eyes bloodshot and watery.
"Hey," he replied, voice just as quiet as hers. The lighting was decidedly dim, but she was grateful for any light at all. "They left. To a bar. Security is still tight around the tight. " He held up a wet rag and dabbed it on her face where the cuts were.
"Thanks." She realized her voice didn't have the strength to be any louder. "I need to tell you something but it still hurts to breathe."
"It's okay. Relax." He repositioned his body next to hers and wrapped his arms around her. She could feel his muscles spazing out and knew they had injected him with at least three different drugs, probably about 2 hours ago.
"No. Please… After I was shot," she inhaled deeply, "One of the surgeon's had been bribed by Red Square to drug me…" She squinted, scanning the room to keep her focus while trying to catch her breath. "with drugs to temporarily …stop my heart," four beats of silence, "and cause paralysis." Out of breath, her body careened on Jack's shoulder. "I woke up here."
Jack began combing his fingers through her hair. He knew it was most likely messing it up even more, but he was afraid to touch her anywhere else. The vibration of her body increased erratically as she succumbed to the pain and cried.
They woke up to the sound of shattering glass. Renee's head rested in Jack's lap. Trying to recollect her thoughts, she vaguely remembered falling asleep. Jack's hand rested on the back of her head, an anchor that brought the false sense of a safetynet.
"You didn't have to sleep sitting up," she yawned. "Are they alive?" she asked, motioning to two of their drunk captors who lay passed out on the floor. "Do you think?" She stopped mid sentence, letting mental telepathy do the rest.
"Can you walk?" he asked. She fell silent, but pushed herself into a sitting position. She immediately felt light headed. "You need water." Grabbing her forearms, he lifted her up and walked her over to a sink a couple rooms to the left. When stopped, Jack took the guard's gun and shoved it into the guard's throat. "We have about three minutes at the most."
Turning the faucet on, Renee cupped her hands, letting the water chill her skin before bringing them back up to her mouth a few times. "Let's go." she said.
It was a mutual omniscient understanding of the other and their mind. A silent syncing of thoughts. There were 4 exits. Only two of them would produce a possible positive outcome. Renee could barely walk, but she could still shoot. Revenge wasn't an option. Jack will do anything to protect her. Renee will do anything to protect Jack. She had the gun from the dead security guard. He had strength.
Halfway to the first exit, a loud explosion awakened the entire compound. "Get down!" Jack yelled, throwing his body over Renee's as a protective barrier. Renee handed him the gun. One by one, he took six men out, but whoever caused the gaping hole in the wall was also on his side, killing the Russians just as quickly.
"Jack!" the intruder yelled. He called out again.
In one sweep, Jack picked Renee up, running towards the man. "Belcheck?" he asked as he sprinted passed him.
"You didn't think Chloe and I would let you rot in this bloody hell hole, did you? Run. I'll finish them off."
Jack smiled seeing that saving grace took the shape of a sky blue van and a couple old friends.
