You're Never Alone

Disclaimer: No, I don't own anything. Nothing at all.

Timeline: Continued from Chapter Uno(1)!

A/N: Thanks again everybody for the reviews! Thanks Diane for looking over and correcting my errors. On with the story...

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The phones had been silent the entire night, so far. Her hope for finding this girl was running thin. She heard footsteps but didn't bother turning around. She recognized them…they were Jack's. He walked up behind her and stopped.

"You're worried we're not going to find her," Jack stated firmly, his voice booming throughout the empty floor.

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She turned around and looked him in the eyes. "Jack...our forty- eight-hour window is almost up and we're no closer to finding her! She's five years old! Five years old!" Tears began to accumulate in her eyes until there was no choice but to flow down. "She should be at home with her family, sleeping, being a little girl. But she's probably out there fighting for her life." She exhaled loudly. "I don't know..." Her tears began to flow freely now. "I just don't know..."

Jack moved closer to Sam and wrapped his arms around her and she began to cry on his shoulder. "We're going to find her. Don't worry."

She lifted her head up and looked at him. "Jack..."

"We're going to find her." He lifted his hand and cupped her cheek, while wiping her tears at the same time. "We will." They stood hugging until Jack felt that Sam was all right. "I'm going to go back to my office. If you need anything, you know where to find me." She nodded.

He rubbed her back one last time and went to his office. His office was dark and solitary, the same thing he felt inside of him, even with the happiness that Sam gave him. His life had been going downhill for as long as he could remember. His mother had killed herself. His father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. His marriage had been jeopardized because of his affair. He was no longer living with his family. Maria wasn't letting him see his girls. His relationship with Sam had "ended." Lately, the cases were taking a huge toll on him. Sleep wasn't coming easy to him and the results of each case were deadly. Case after case, the missing were discovered dead. They had either been dead for a while or been discovered too late. The latter dominated most of the team's findings and it affected Jack more than anyone.

Jack desperately wanted the emptiness inside of him to disappear, but it didn't. It simply mounted. Day after day his routine was the same. He'd get up, go to work and lose some of his hope, go to his apartment, and barely sleep a wink. He couldn't do it anymore. It was getting close to the end of the line for Special Supervisory Agent Jack Malone.

He sat down in his chair, with his back facing his desk, and rested his elbows on his knees. He began to think what a mess his life had become and tears began welling in his eyes. His wife. His kids. His life. His mess. Tears began to fall and he rested his head atop his hands. Chaos was what his life had become. He was glad that no one was in his office because he didn't want anyone seeing him like this, not even Sam.

Tears were falling freely when he heard his door open. He knew it was Sam, the only other person here.

"Jack?" Sam asked, finding his position odd.

"Yeah," Jack said as he cleared his throat and refused to turn around.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah I'm fine," He took both hands and started wiping his tears away as fast and unnoticeable as he could.

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Jack said as he turned around. His eyes were red from the tears that had been falling. His nose had become runny, so he sniffled several times.

"Jack wh—" Sam was interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing. They looked at each other and Sam left to answer the phone.

Left alone again in his office, Jack rummaged his desk for some Visine to take some of the redness out of his eyes. He found it in the back corner of one of his drawers and quickly put some drops in his eyes. He blinked a couple of times and looked over to the table of phones to see Sam scribbling on a piece of paper. He grabbed a tissue from a nearby box and blew his nose to take the sniffling away. He did just about everything he could think of to avoid answering the question that was about to slip off of Sam's tongue just minutes earlier. He looked up again to see Sam hurriedly coming back to his office.

"What's up?" Jack asked interested, and at the same time trying to change the previous subject.

"You wouldn't believe it. The cashier at the gas station just called and he said that he saw Alexis with our same suspect," Sam replied.

"And when did he last see her?"

"Five minutes ago."

"About how far is the gas station from here?"

"Twenty, thirty minutes."

"We better hurry then."

Jack hurried out of the office. Sam ran to her desk and grabbed her jacket and gun and followed Jack to the car.

TBC...