Hello hello Agents! Here I am with another NEW one-shot! This one, like all of them really, was fun to do :)
Just for varieties sake, what do you guys want to see in future one-shots? More angst? More fluff? More cute stuff or more romantic stuff? Let me know, cause I will be happy to tailor to your feels ;)
Anyways, without further ado, enjoy! - Ellisaed :)
The van swerved a sharp right, the shrill of tire squeals cutting like a knife in the hot afternoon air. Surrounding traffic blared on their horns angrily, but it seemed irrelevant as the black vehicle raced through them anyways, those not in compliance being clipped as a result.
Audrey peeked her head up the best she could, trying to see out through the windshield, but they turned again and she was slammed back into the sides of the empty backseat. Her legs were scraped deep against the raw steel of the floor and she couldn't brace herself fast enough to stop her head from hitting the side. Her vision blurred and hazed, but stubbornly she fought it away; not even the painful bruise that trailed blood down her forehead could distracted her from her real concern: Jack.
Quickly, Audrey regained composure and crawled back to the body lying limp and tumbled along side her in the trunk of the getaway vehicle. Though his bulk was heavy, she pulled his arms until he rolled back onto his back, taking his stubbled face in her hands again as she had.
"Jack?!" She said desperately, aching for the blues of his eyes to meet hers but she only saw the flutter of dreaming beneath his eyelids. At least he was not dead. Yet.
Audrey gently laid his head to one side, eyes moving to the bloodied stain forming rapidly on his lower left side. Even through his dark cotton t-shirt she could see the wound - whether it was from a bullet it a knife - was deep and the bleeding could be fatal. She had to stop the bleeding, somehow, with something.
Again, the van jerked a corner and Audrey shouted as she rolled and slammed into the side as before. This time, though, she felt the frightened and frustrated tears spring in her eyes. She had forced herself to be brave so far. She had no choice.
They had come in broad daylight. Her and Jack had been out for lunch downtown in L.A., like they usually did once a week. The location was popular, bustling, out in the open, and Jack had always been able to sense if something did not feel right about a place, or if they may have been at risk. Audrey had felt uneasy that day, but for a reason unrelated. Her and Jack hadn't been getting along, at work or at home, for three days straight, as much as they both hated it. She had been prepared to talk it out, to hopefully regain that familiar trust she took refuge in him - she had not been prepared for this.
Their captors - whoever they were - were not just a few run-of-the-mill, mid-life crisis type of kidnappers. They had come silently and prepared. It was the kind of thing Audrey imagined being in a cheap horror-thriller, one you could see a mile away but still be fooled by. She didn't know their motives or their plan, she only knew that her and Jack had to escape before something even worse happened.
Audrey felt dizzier then as she made it back to Jack, wiping tears from her blurry gaze. There was a sheen of feverish sweat on his face, and he tossed his head from one side to the other as if trapped in a nightmare. She placed a hand on his cheek gently, not deny that she was very frightened, in many ways and for many reasons, but she forced herself to be brave. That's what she knew Jack would have done for her.
Quickly, her head clearing at the thought, Audrey put away her fears and slipped out of her beige coloured jacket, attempting to tear it. The fabric was too thick, she knew after her first few tugs at the weak spots, and she instead pulled her blouse over her head and repeated the same, able to rip it easily.
She grabbed the hem of Jack's bloodied shirt and rolled it up to his ribcage, able to better see the intensity of the wound. She wasn't a doctor but she knew enough to know it must have hurt like hell, and she wasted no time in carefully covering it with a few smaller pieces of her white blouse before wrapping them in place with the long lopsided strips she made from the excess.
It was when she was tightly tying the last knot of the wrap that Jack Bauer suddenly regained consciousness with a gasp. He jerked upright, eyes bright in confusion and pain, and Audrey pushed him back to lie down.
"Audrey," His voice came out in a desperate question, that whisper she knew well, though then it was only a coarse breath, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"Where are we?" Jack turned a bit, glancing around the dim darkness of the van.
"I - I'm not sure, I couldn't see anything, and we kept turning - "
"Shh." Jack gestured her to silence, and through the rattles of the beat up vehicle and the jolting thumps of their own bodies he strained to hear.
Audrey picked up that by the lessening of street sounds - car horns, brakes screaming - they had been driven either onto the freeway or the outskirts of L.A., which were both bad things.
"We're outside the city." Jack confirmed her suspicion with a nod. He pointed toward a crack in the metal siding of the car, to the bright flickers of orange setting sunlight. "West is there. We're headed southbound."
"Who are these people?" Audrey asked hopefully. She saw by Jack's hesitation, though, that it wouldn't be that easy.
"I didn't get a good look . . . when they grabbed me. I have a hunch it's retaliation from CTU's recent investigations in the Maldives," Jack decided, his voice holding little hesitation to his statement. "They didn't like me poking around their business, and wanted to take care of the 'loose ends'."
She subtly remembered Jack speaking of the group from the Maldives spotted in East L.A. that CTU had been monitoring. She hadn't given it much thought then, because Jack's work was never a risk to her essentially.
"Loose ends?" Audrey repeated, though she knew what he meant, "What are they going to do with us?"
"Dump our bodies somewhere," Jack replied dryly, as if he were talking about something of nonchalance like dropping off the dry cleaning. "But they left us a lot of leeway."
Jack tilted his head a bit, motioning Audrey toward his right pocket, and she put her hand in and grabbed what was inside: a round metal button.
"My tracker. CTU just issued them mandatory; for once, I guess it wasn't a dumb thing to cut our budget for."
"So are we okay?"
"Since I haven't reported leaving L.A., it should send out a distress signal. Chloe always watches my thing like a hawk. CTU should be on our trail."
"So we are okay?"
"Yes, sweetheart. We're gonna be okay."
Despite the still eminent danger around them, Jack somehow found peace in the moment, even as a hostage in a getaway van. That was what endeared her about him. Audrey wanted to cry and laugh in relief all at once, and when Jack motioned her closer to him she couldn't speak. They sat hip to hip, her hand in his,callused fingers wrapped around her soft hands, and Jack kissed her, the sort of kiss that explained everything while saying nothing at all. Their foreheads were pressed together as they parted.
"Are you okay?" Jack asked, pushing himself upright a bit more and reaching out to brush away dirty blonde hair and touch the reddened graze on her forehead, "What did they do to you?"
"Nothing, Jack, I'm fine. You're hurt."
"It's just a graze, barely hurts." Jack lied through his teeth, seeming only slightly bothered by the wound in his gut, a hand gently touching the darkened makeshift bandage. "Did you do this?"
Audrey nodded, "I had to stop the bleeding."
The look that came over his was a kind of proud pleasure Audrey rarely saw, the bluish eyes turning up in almost a smile; it could have also come from the fact that since she had used her shirt for the bandage, she was still only in her bra. "Good. I have to say, overall, this has been a fairly successful lunch date."
Audrey let the smile happen then, "Indeed. Though I wish we could have stayed for dessert."
"Dessert? Coming right up . . ."
He kissed her deeper then.
Thank you for reading! Tell me what you think!