A/N – This story takes place a few months after my other fic – A Slow Simmer. While that one was mostly how Doyle & Nadia got together, this will feature a little more of everyone.

This is for all those great Doyle/Nadia writers out there -- especially Tigerlily, LauraSedai and 24isBest who still have unfinished stories at the moment. Also for ShadowSakura, who never fails to give such encouraging reviews. We are all waiting for your Answers :)

Disclaimer: Characters are owned by 24

Left Behind

Jack looked outside the window of his office. The view never ceased to amaze him. He could see all of lower Manhattan and parts of the Hudson River from up here. The sun had started to set, casting a reddish hue on the shimmering water. The streets below were buzzing with people darting out of office buildings in a mad rush to get home. New York and LA were so different, even in how rush hour manifested itself. In LA, it meant massive traffic jams and pileups on the freeway. In New York, it was dealing with wall to wall people who subjected themselves to getting crushed on the subway daily.

He was still conflicted about his new life. Time would only tell whether he had made the right decision. At Marilyn's insistence, he assumed the role of CEO at BXJ Technologies. There had been a management gap after both Philip and Graeme died, and Marilyn couldn't really step up to the role. The move to New York had been precipitated by the need to put as much distance between himself and his sister-in-law. She made it no secret that she wanted to pick up where they left off, but Jack still had hopes that Audrey would recover someday. In the meantime, he started building a totally different life for himself, hopefully one that she could come back to. His only regret about leaving LA was not being able to see Josh more often. He had grown fond of the boy who looked up to him as a father figure. It was nice being needed again.

His introspection was interrupted as Bill walked into his office.

"Jack, do you have a minute? I'd like to go over the quarterly financial statements with you before we meet with the auditors tomorrow."

"Sure. Red or black?" It was a private joke that he and Buchanan shared, although he was still a little nervous about the answer. The company's reputation had suffered after its involvement in the LA nuclear incident was made public. At one point, the government had rescinded all of its contracts and BXJ almost had to file for bankruptcy.

"Don't worry. We're very much in the black." Bill smiled. "We got the government contracts back after Tom Lennox intervened."

"Good, but I'm still not comfortable having ninety percent of our revenues come from the government. We really need to go in a different direction soon."

"Yes, we all agreed that security consulting is a good niche to get into, given our collective experience. Karen has a few leads lined up, but we can't really market this seriously until we have enough people to staff the projects."

"When is Doyle starting?"

"Unfortunately, he has to stay at CTU LA a few more months before his government benefits are fully vested."

Karen burst into his office before Jack got a chance to reply.

"Well, gentlemen, we just landed Solera!" she announced triumphantly. "I'm really very excited about them. As you both know, they're the market leader in automated trading." Karen pointed to a chart in the presentation she brought with her. "Just look at their volumes! They blow away their competitors in trade execution orders sent to the New York Stock Exchange."

"Congratulations, sweetheart." Bill knew how hard she worked to land this account. It was all she could talk about for days.

"That's great news, Karen." Jack smiled at her appreciatively. "Also very timely. Bill and I were just talking about our diversification plans."

"If we execute this well, it would definitely open more doors for us in the financial industry." She added.

"We'll staff that engagement with Chloe and Morris. They're the best technical people we have." Bill chimed in.

"Agreed. Let's meet with them tomorrow to discuss deliverables and timeframe."

"We're going to head out then. Good night, Jack."

"See you both tomorrow. Karen, thanks again."

Jack watched the two leave his office. He smiled as he saw Bill reach for Karen's hand when they were almost out of sight. He was glad that he was able to coax both of them out of retirement, even if it meant ceding some control of the company to them.

The petite dark-haired woman in the black pant suit listened intently to the conversation captured from one of the back channels. It was in Arabic, her native language, but it was making no sense. She wrinkled her brows in confusion and looked at the field agent sitting across from her.

"Agent Baker, this is the third time I've listened to this, and I still can't make heads or tails out of it. It clearly indicates that something big is going to happen in the next few weeks, but the target makes no sense."

"Why not?"

"They keep mentioning the word 'shams' as the target. In English, that means the sun. I don't understand the connection."

"Do you think this chatter was put out there on purpose to confuse us?"

"It's possible. To be sure, I'd like you to deploy teams to the potential high-profile targets over the next few days. Grand Central Station and the New York Stock Exchange are on top of the list. Meanwhile, I'll ask the mayor to raise the alert level to orange."

"I'll get on it right away."

"Wait. Stay for this."

She dialed a number on the polycom.

"Marcy, have you tracked down the whereabouts of Tarik Aziz yet?

"No info yet on where he lives, but he's been sighted regularly in a coffee shop on 10th & 50th street. Apparently, he's always there between 8 and 10am on Wednesdays."

"Ok, thanks."

She looked up at Agent Baker.

"We'll have to do this next week then. I'm praying we still have enough time."

He shook his head disapprovingly, knowing fully what she intended to do.

"Are you sure you're up for this? We could always just pick him up for interrogation."

"No, we'll get more useful information this way."

"You're going to need backup."

"I think I can take care of myself."

Agent Baker just stood there and looked at her silently. He wasn't budging.

"Oh, all right, Tom." She agreed grudgingly. "Make sure it's discreet. He can smell a field agent a mile away."

After he left her office, Nadia propped up both elbows on the table and placed her hands on either temple. She was under a lot of pressure lately and felt like she was being squeezed from both ends. Her supervisors at Division were getting impatient with her inability to come up with a definite lead on this matter. In addition, she was getting little support from the people who reported to her. She knew they resented her appointment as CTU Director and were waiting on the sidelines for her to fail. Agent Baker, her head of Field Ops, seemed to be the only one she could trust. He and Nadia shared a common bond, having both worked with Jack Bauer in the past.

I miss Mike. Why did he … She shook her head as if that would rid her mind of thoughts about him.

She watched him from the corner of her eyes. He's here again. Like clockwork. For the past few months now, he had come to this bar every Thursday night, always sitting in the same stool tucked away at the end. He would order a beer and nurse it for an hour as he stared blankly at the wall. She had attempted to strike up a conversation several times, but his one word responses made it clear he wanted to be alone.

"What can I get you today, Doyle? The usual?"

He shook his head. "A scotch on the rocks, please."

"Coming right up." Guess he's having a bad day. "Here you go."

He downed it in one shot and stared thoughtfully at the empty glass clasped between his hands. "Another one, please."

"Something wrong?" She said as she poured him another.

He raised his head slowly and was about to say something rude, but stopped as he saw the genuine concern on her face. He shook his head instead.

"Sometimes it's better to talk about it. Let me guess…it's a woman, isn't it?" That was a bold statement, considering he seemed the type who would have no compunction about biting her head off. His cool gaze melted a little at her sympathetic smile.

"You could say that. She's too far away." At her questioning look, he added. "She moved to New York a few months ago." Four months and ten days to be exact.

"That's not too far away. It's only a six hour flight. Have you visited her since?"

"I was supposed to fly over to see her two weeks after she left, but a crisis came up at work and I had to postpone. We couldn't get our schedules synced up since."

The distance was tougher on their relationship than he had anticipated. It was either a crisis in LA or one in New York. Their damned jobs just wouldn't let them be together. It seemed inevitable that they would slowly slip out of each other's lives.

It didn't help that he had a hard time expressing his feelings in words. Their phone conversations were always punctuated with periods of awkward silence. Other times, things just got lost in translation and they ended up fighting. The daily calls turned into weekly ones and then even less frequent. Their last one had not gone well at all. He had left her several messages the past few days, but she had yet to return them.

He was lost in his own thoughts until he realized that the bartender was still talking.

"Hey! Did you just tune me out?" she asked incredulously. "I said to hell with your schedules, why don't you just surprise her and show up one weekend?"

"I don't know whether that would do any good. We just broke up."

Next Chapter: Chloe and Morris at BXJ, more on the Doyle/Nadia break up, and maybe, just maybe, someone from Jack's past reappears

A/N – Please leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback for future chapters.

Return to Top