"Misses… uhm Martha." Curtis Manning held out his hand and gestured Martha Logan into the undecorated concrete hallway that led back to CTU. "It would be down this way. I'll need to get you a pass to see Bill Buchanan. He's trying to work out the bugs with the person filling in for Chloe. Don't expect him to be in the best of moods."
Martha Logan stopped as they entered the corridor that split into different directions inside of CTU, taking in Curtis Manning in his navy suit and gray shirt with a quick gaze. "I don't intend to interrupt Mr. Buchanan at the moment, but I would very much like to see Gwen Winters."
Curtis stopped in his tracks and took a guilty breath, his eyes dropping for a moment. "You knew… she did?"
"Now now… no, I kept your secret. It was best for Jack. She doesn't know I'm here but I think it's time she did."
Curtis hesitated and then smiled. "Yeah. This way."
Gwen Winters opened the door to her glass-walled office with a bright smile and hugged Martha Logan quickly before inviting her to sit down across from her cluttered desk. "What brings you here? I didn't think the news stories were right about some function at the Getty. Does a display of Etruscan pottery really warrant your attention?"
"No, but it was the display that was leaving at a pressingly convenient time. I'm here because of Jack Bauer."
Winters sighed and clasped her hands under her chin. "I can imagine. He's about the worst case I've dealt with in longer than I can remember but he's also got the best chance of coming through it on the same scale. The Chinese are very good at what they do, but crude in some ways. They go from sophisticated sensory abuse to acupuncture intended to simply inflict pain. The upshot of the diversity is that it's hard for victim to psychologically prepare, to use conditioning tricks. As for Bauer, his personal life and professional experiences before now don't make this any easier. I know you have an interest in this, but I can't say much more. I'll be glad to have you see him as soon as he and Chloe O'Brian think he's ready to start reintegrating again."
Martha Logan smiled and sat forward, taking off her jacket and revealing that the dry clean only material was water-stained and still slightly damp. "Actually, I just left him."
Not even the barest touch of surprise came to Gwen Winters face. She frowned with consideration and sat back, unclasping her hands and brushing imagined hairs off her warm tan dress. "Just what I was hoping to hear."
A knock interrupted her next words.
"Come in."
Bill Buchanan entered the room with quiet steps, shaking Martha Logan's hand and taking the other chair. "You brought us a real treasure here, Martha. She's helped a good number of our people, to say nothing, I hope, of Jack Bauer."
"I know what she did for me. I owed her to Jack."
Winters had the grace to roll her eyes very slightly. "Speaking of whom, Bill, your people have disobeyed me just a bit. I suspect it was Mr. Manning in league with Chloe." She turned to Martha Logan with a thin smile. "Correct?"
"Yes, a little reluctantly though. I think Chloe browbeat him into it."
Bill Buchanan realized he was out of a very brief loop and nailed both women with a stern look. Martha faked a withered gaze and patted his hand. "I've been up to see Jack, all at the secretive request of Chloe O'Brian and Curtis Manning. They opted to leave Dr. Winters out of the equation."
Buchanan scowled unhappily. "It might be one thing in field operations but this is a matter of a medical condition of a man I hope to see functional here again. Neither of them is qualified to defy---."
Gwen Winters raised a hand to stop the quiet tirade. "Don't worry about it. It's only defiance on a technicality. This was just what I expected, actually what I was hoping for."
Martha Logan only smiled but Buchanan continued staring at her, his eyes brightened by the light color of his suit. "Meaning?"
"Come on, Mr. Buchanan – Bill, what's the one thing that your people seemed to invariably do when they have to choose between Bauer and authority?"
A small contemplative smile suddenly touched the corners of Buchanan's narrow lips. "I see. What else would feel more normalizing to Jack Bauer than his friends ignoring the rules? How was he?"
Martha sobered a little and then the classic lines of her face took on sudden neutrality, turning the analysis she had been taught to use herself toward her memories of what she had seen of Bauer. "It's hard to say exactly this time. He took a bad fall while I was there. He seemed to have some sort of episode when Chloe left him in the bath water."
"They probably pretended to drown him at least a few dozen times when they got tired of everything else," Winters offered, her disgust not entirely hidden. "I'm sorry, go on."
"I'm guessing he panicked and fell pulling himself out. I followed Chloe after a few seconds and watched them for a moment. He calmed down almost the moment she was with him. In fact he was actually very passive with me when he was naked and we were alone. I sent Chloe off to get some ice where he'd bruised himself."
Winters gaze went inward for a moment. "He didn't withdraw?"
"No, he seemed a little embarrassed but mostly resigned, almost obedient, and I'm a stranger to him. He blushed a bit and let me dress him, even joked a little when I asked if I could call him by his first name. After that I told him why I came, what I wanted for him, and that I'd been where he was in my own way. I also told him that I wouldn't have gotten away without his bringing down…," an expression of pure disgust rippled for a moment over Martha Logan's face, any word she might have used to name the man who had been her husband and President failing to pass her lips. "Well, anyhow, outside of the fall, he looked fairly healthy… uh… physically," she flashed a brief smile at the other two, "and he even told me he was sorry about what I had been through. Strange to hear from the man who freed me from it." Martha's own gaze turned inward and she relayed the rest of her conversation with Bauer and her quick impressions of what she had seen pass between him and Chloe O'Brian.
Gwen Winters took notes constantly, asking for a layperson's impressions was not normally part of what she would have done but the situation was unique and so was the layperson sharing those impressions. Martha Logan had indeed known darkness, had known betrayal, but then had known friendship and once again found out how much strength had been hiding within her. In a way it was easier for her to recognize it than someone seeking it with a PhD who couldn't know what it felt like from the inside.
"That was pretty much it. He took hold of Chloe for a moment at the end of talk and I could see he felt like he might get to the end of the tunnel for the first time. It's as scary as it is a relief but … well, here I am, trying to turn the favor around."
Bill Buchanan smiled at Logan with genuine admiration. "We all appreciate it, not just now but what you did that day. I know there are things you want to put behind you, but I hope not everything."
"Not at all," Martha answered. Her reply was immediate, unshaken. "That was the day I remembered who I had been, and started living Martha's life again." She came to her feet with a sigh and spread her hands. "I don't think I can tell you any more."
"You've told me a lot, Martha. Let's get some dinner in about an hour. I just want to compress these notes and then flesh them out when I go home."
Bill stood up and offered the former First Lady his arm. "Let me show you the rest of this place. We've been able to upgrade quite a bit since the Congressional Sub-Committee on Intelligence redirected its funds to where they seem to have done the most good."
She took his arm and waved a quick good-bye to Gwen Winters, "You sound like a man who has a right to be proud."
Winters waved good-bye a full ten seconds after they'd left, surprised to find them gone and the going back to the crunched notes she had made about Martha's impressions of Bauer. Trust Immersion was not something she often did since it relied so much in its initial stages on people untrained in psychological disciplines or even medical ones but the level of security it built was often the foundation she needed to begin her part of the job. An hour passed before she realized it and Martha Logan knocked back on the door.
"You can't hide in here if we all know where you are. Time to eat."
Gwen stood up quickly, folding up the thick file. "No, I'm not one of those people who compromises themselves to get the job done. Some of the rest of us have to be selfish so we have the brains to glue the rest of the people in this line of work back together. I want to try the Thai place up on La Cienega."
There was a limo waiting for them outside the caverns of CTU, a gray one the size of a small house. Winters started to get in and stopped. "Damn it, I forgot the file on Wellman. I need to go back. It's locked where only I can get it."
Martha stopped getting in herself. "I need the little girl's room anyhow. I'll go with you." She tapped on the roof of the car. "Robert, put these windows down. We'll be right back and I want the fresh air, well, what you can get of it in L.A." The windows on the limo were humming down as the two women left, passing - unseen through the tinted windows of her SUV- a third. Audrey Raines shifted back as they passed her six rows of cars away, on her own way to dinner. She recognized Martha Logan, of course, as quickly as she would have recognized any of the others with whom she worked day to day and, of course, knew that it had been Martha Logan who had brought Gwyneth Winters here for Jack. Audrey played for a moment with the idea of climbing out of the car and confronting them both, politely of course, but demanding some answers. Jack had been gone for over a week now, tucked in a safe-house with, of all people, Chloe O'Brian. The buzz about her disappearing at the same time as Jack had been released from Medical were now the biggest topic of gossip going and no doubt the source of the glances and shrugs directed her way from people standing outside the bathroom or queued up at the proverbial water cooler.
No, no point in making an ass of herself to anyone else. She would have to trust Jack. She would even have to trust Chloe. Audrey picked up her keys and turned back toward the windshield as Winters and Logan passed out of sight, sliding her key in the ignition. It was then she noticed the open windows the limo and remembered the empty hands of the platinum-haired doctor as she and Logan had walked back. There had been a file in them on their way to the car. The chance that it wasn't Jack's...
Indecision crippled Raines for a moment as well as the undeniable fact that what she was thinking of doing was wrong, would be violating Jack's privacy once again, would be lots of things. She hesitated as she reached for the door handle but if she had learned anything in her time with Jack, it was simply do it now if you were going to do it, especially if one was breaking the rules. Audrey slid from the vehicle and popped the hood, touching a few places to dirty her hands on the caked grease of the engine and then loosening the distributor wires. She laid them close to the connection point, hiding their intended malfunction. Jaw clenched, she slammed her ankle against the car bumper, enough to redden and later bruise it.
Not giving herself time to allow for her doubts, she hobbled over to the limo and tapped on the driver's window.
"Ma'am?"
"I work at CTU and I can't get my car to start. Would you mind looking at it? I'm going home. I'm not looking for something from the Motor Pool."
She hopped back as he exited the limo and he looked down and saw her bruising ankle under the hem of her red skirt. "Are you hurt?"
Audrey smiled up at the heavy-set, powerful looking, and dark-haired man. "No, just twisted my leg hopping out of the car. Husband bought it without asking me. Uh, I'll just stay here if you don't mind, the hood's open." She pointed at the tan SUV and leaned on the limo roof.
"I only have a second, Ma'am, but I'll look."
"Thank you."
She kept smiling as he turned and walked away, her lips falling back to their usual configuration as she moved to the back of the limo and after a last look ducked down and retrieved the hefty file. On the tab at the top, just as she assumed, read simply but sadly "Bauer, Jack". With a last glance up at the bent back of the kindly driver, she opened the file and looked at the first page of notes sitting on the top. Her first unpleasant shock was that they were dated for today. Not only had Jack had his first visitor, it had been a woman he'd never met – the now near legendary Martha Logan, who had somehow bullied her way in where Audrey had been forbidden to go, to see Jack.
Audrey glanced at the driver fussing with her SUV again and back at the cascade of notes in Winters' flowing cursive, her teeth grinding as she scanned the log of Martha Logan's visit. She wiped the tears from her eyes and reached to turn the page with a shaking hand.
"Another few days, Mrs. Raines, and I might have shared a good deal of that with you."
The pages scattered on the asphalt under her feet.
Consciousness returned to Jack Bauer with small steps, first awareness of the dim light that was on on the dresser across the room, the weight of a thin blanket over the robe, catching on the terry fibers, the fact that his right hip ached just a bit. That brought with it the memory of Martha Logan, the former First Lady of the United States, fussing over him as he clutched a towel over his privates. No flashback of embarrassment came with it, however, she had been so efficient, so deft in her movement, that he'd had time to only think about how good she had been at the task in hand, even when she'd sent Chloe out of the room and for the first time in days he was alone with someone else. A flashback of regret did come then, he must have scared the hell out of her when she found him on the floor. He should have told her about the false attempts to drown him, even about the attempts he had made to help them finish the job. However, each lungful of cold saltwater he had tried to draw into himself and end the torture, they simply pounded back out of him until blood mixed with the water he was gagging back up. In the end it was easier to struggle, not for his life, but to avoid the aftermath of having tried to end it himself. Bauer shivered his way through the memory and reached behind him without thinking, to the spot where Chloe had been.
The other side of the small bed was empty and he allowed himself to fall onto his back. She was still in the room with him, asleep in the brown armchair next to the bed; her laptop was on the table beside it, a blue light demanding a recharge. Somehow he was more disappointed to find her still in the room asleep but not at least sitting next to him. Jack sat up silently, favoring his hip and reminded by his shin that it was unhappy with his fall as well. He moved them both into a more comfortable position and then turned so that he could see O'Brian.
Bauer suddenly realized why she had left him – out of respect for himself and for his relationship with Audrey. Chloe would do everything necessary to care for him, comfort him, feed him, talk him through the nightmares, even bathe him as he clung to her, but their friendship before had never included her being in his bed. It wouldn't have during this scenario except that it had kept him from nightmares that had caused him to wet himself. While it was true he would have woken up this morning still in her arms if this had been Audrey, it now touched him more that Chloe had left his bed, hadn't made more of their situation than what was needed after he was soundly asleep.
He hadn't been blinded or deafened during his imprisonment; he could tell she was affected by him when they were close, that his sudden need for her, so unlike what it had been in the past, was pulling at her past the bonds of friendship. He knew some of it was simply natural, inescapable sexual tension mixed with maternal instinct (he'd been to enough psychology courses for that) but then there was her blurted response as he lay naked and bleeding on the floor of the bathroom, her absent accusation that he never played fair. He looked away from her as she slept, suddenly guilty. He wasn't playing fair but there was no one else with whom he could have done this. Having Kim do the things Chloe had done was unthinkable; she was his daughter, the one he was supposed to protect.
His not wanting Audrey to have been here was more complex. True, they had been lovers, her touch was familiar but the memories of being with her would have added to his frustrations. He wasn't even sure he could function sexually yet but beyond all that, he could again still feel himself strangling her in the interrogation room, still feel the ghost of her betrayal of him until the last possible moment. Had her pride been so important when his friends, one of them a President, had been murdered? He'd forgiven her yet now he was left to wonder how much of his doubts were in fact his own and how much they stemmed from the conversation he'd overheard. It didn't matter which, they were there now and he hadn't had time to process them regardless. That Audrey had slept with Walt Cummings thinking he was dead was irrelevant, that she had taken him to the point of using force against her… Jack suddenly shook his head violently and forced himself to stop thinking.
There was no doubt that Chloe had been the right choice as far as his own needs were concerned; he just didn't want their lives to become more complicated because he did. Being able to mindlessly, unthinkingly, unquestioningly trust had enabled him to begin his recovery, had made life simple and safe, had reminded him that there were things in life that could be easy. He didn't want to return Chloe's time sacrifice by offering confusion and frustration. Limping, he walked into the bathroom and shut the door, looking away from the bathtub as he went.
Chloe was standing up when he left the bathroom, rubbing her backside though her gray sweats. She twitched a smile at him. "Hey."
"Hey yourself. Don't tell me you slept all right."
"Well, my butt's still asleep if that means anything," she snapped quickly, the lopsided smile flashing on her lips. "What about you?"
"Fine, quiet. Martha Logan is a handful. I didn't do anything but sit here and listen I was exhausted when she was gone."
Chloe straightened from making the bed. 'Yeah but you were better. I could tell. I guess it makes a difference when you hear all the psychobabble from somebody it actually helped, but…" Chloe's voice drifted away, an uncharacteristic silence overcoming her. Jack sat down on the bed as she finished making it, reaching up for her hands.
"But?"
Chloe looked around the room for a moment then suddenly gave him a direct and stubborn stare and gripped his hands as tightly as she dared. "I don't care if you tell Winters or not – I know you're afraid she might have some crazy therapy for you to put up with if you do – but you're gonna' have to tell me what they did to you, all of it, so that I don't screw up again. I didn't listen to you when I was running out of the bathroom. I should have known how upset you were but I flipped out when Martha Logan got here. I shouldn't have done that either; it wasn't like I'd never met her before."
Jack looked at the long-fingered hands crushing his own, her own strength probably unknown to her. Chloe suddenly dropped to one knee and forced him to meet her eyes. There was a new and strange emotion in them, a pain that pleaded that she not have the chance to hurt him again… and a promise that his darkest secrets were safe. It took only a moment before he closed his eyes and simply nodded, keeping the pain private for a precious few seconds more. He knew that he could tell Chloe and she would tell no one but if he could tell her and if it made things easier, he could eventually tell Winters and get the other help he needed.
Chloe grimaced at the top of Jack's head and then put her right hand on his cheek and forced his head up. "We'll get some food and then we'll talk. We'll just take it slow. I just can't do that again, Jack; maybe it's selfish to force you but I can't find you banged up in the floor anymore because of something I did or didn't do."
He met her eyes then, now in the familiar territory of being angry with himself. "That wasn't your fault. I didn't tell you about the ballast tank." He smiled suddenly, a small laugh escaping him. "The only thing you did wrong was making me feel so safe before that the thought didn't cross my mind all the other times."
Chloe scowled viciously at that, actually meaning it a little, but she wasn't about to tell him he wasn't playing fair again. Standing, she let go of his face to deliver a two-fingered tap to his nose. "Okay, no more feeling that safe around me. I am still doing the cooking, remember?"
