Thanks to those still reading and to those kind enough to drop a review, I appreciate your time and thoughts! Extra-special thanks to Roadrunnerz for checking this over for me. You're the best!
Enjoy...
March 2
06:22 pm
New York City
Once again, it's pain – a burning and throbbing throughout her torso along with a fierce ache in her head – that begins to draw Renee out of the nothingness. Unlike last time, however, as she begins to re-establish the connections to her body, the questions stirring in her brain are enough to keep her from retreating back into it.
There are questions about the pain that seems to be holding her hostage and the darkness that is so reluctant to let her go; about why she feels cold; about the soft beeping and its steady hypnotic rhythm; and about the itching in her nose so intent on annoying her.
And then there are the voices, distorted and ghostlike, that seem so close.
Instinctively, she tries to open her eyes to search them out only to find it's as though her eyelids are glued shut.
A vague sensation of déjà vu comes over her. She's been in this situation before, hasn't she?
Unable to recall for certain, she tries her eyes again. Then again. With each attempt, she encounters the heavy resistance of her eyelids until at last, just as she is ready to concede defeat, she feels them give way – just enough to let a shock of light in through their slits that forces them closed again.
She tries to search her brain for a memory that might explain what the hell is going on. It feels like hours pass before something comes to her:
She was tired. So deeply tired. She was curled up in a corner on her sofa, her dinner – a slice of two day old pizza – sat untouched on the coffee table in front of her. Right next to the employment section of the newspaper that caused her to lose what meager appetite she might've had.
On the television across the dimly-lit room, the evening news had, at some point, transitioned to some ridiculously inane "reality" show. She wasn't watching it, of course. Or listening, for that matter. Her attention was more on slowly picking the non-existent lint off of the light blanket draped over her legs. It was another habit she's fallen into over the last several months and the blanket was now almost thread bare in places.
At some point, her eyes flickered to the TV screen just long enough to catch a familiar graphic alerting viewers that programming was being interrupted. Another update on the peace conference, she'd thought dully as she picked at the blanket. They'd been breaking into regular programming most of the day. Sure enough, a moment later, a news anchor's face filled the screen, the UN seal visible over his shoulder.
And then her phone was ringing.
Again.
She reached down between the cushions of the sofa to retrieve it from where she'd shoved it just a moment before and she glanced at the caller-ID. It was the same number as the last two times she'd ignored it. She didn't recognize it but whoever it was obviously wasn't taking the hint because each time the phone fell silent, no more than half a minute would pass before it would start ringing again.
She sighed in disgust, wishing she'd had the presence of mind to shut the damned ringer off after the first call. Or the third.
But then, that was part of the problem, wasn't it? Her presence of mind – or lack thereof, as she'd been told.
Repeatedly.
She gave up and picked up the call.
"What do you want?" she demanded angrily.
And that is the extent of it.
She tries to remember more, tries to concentrate on who called or what the call was about, but there is nothing beyond that. The memory doesn't clarify anything.
She attempts to pry her eyes open again. This time, she's relieved to find that it doesn't require nearly the exertion it did before. Nor is the light that greets her as painful.
As her eyes adjust, she blinks several times to clear her blurry vision and tries to find something in the fuzzy mass before her to focus on. It seems like forever before she begins to recognize that the mass has some sort of structure to it. She blinks hard again, hoping to bring it into something sharper and more definable. Finally, she's able to differentiate the end of a bed from the unfamiliar and mutely-colored curtain covering part of the equally unfamiliar wall just beyond it.
Where the…?
She doesn't finish the thought, the slightly deeper breath she'd just unconsciously started to draw stretching her muscles too far and escalating the burning and throbbing in her abdomen. Grimacing, she groans softly and closes her eyes against the pain.
It's then that she hears a man nearby saying her name.
"Renee?"
Her reply is out of her painfully dry mouth before she even thinks about it. "Larry?" she whispers, her voice sounding rough and almost unrecognizable to her own ears.
The silence that follows prompts her to open her eyes and search him out.
"Renee…" he says now, "Renee, it's Cole."
Renee shifts her eyes toward the direction the voice came from to find a man – slim, with dark hair and a look of overt concern draping his features – coming into her line of sight. She doesn't recognize him but he seems to know her.
"How do you feel?"
Cole… Cole…
Still wincing from the pain, Renee presses her eyes closed and tries to place him. Before she can, another voice sounds in the room.
"Renee?"
She knows that voice. Sure enough, when she opens her eyes again, the small and familiar woman with long dark hair and dark-rimmed glasses is standing next to the man who just called himself 'Cole.'
Janis.
Bracing herself for the pain she intuitively knows will follow, Renee draws a deeper breath before trying to say something to her – only to find the breath triggers a cough. The cough extends into others and in a flash, the pain in her abdomen and chest explodes. She cries out, her right hand grabbing at her stomach.
"It's okay, Renee," Janis says quickly, covering Renee's right hand with her own, lightly squeezing it before turning to the man next to her. "Go get help."
The need to cough lingers for another long moment but finally, it begins to pass; the pain in her torso doesn't however, and not only has her headache suddenly gotten worse, the coughing episode has revealed a new, sharp pain in the right side of her chest that comes with each, shaky and tentative breath.
She clenches her eyes shut, forcing out the tears that have risen as a result of the pain, feeling them tickle her temple as they slide into her hair.
Coughing – breathing – has never hurt like this before. Not even with broken ribs.
"Renee…" The worry in Janis' tone is unmistakable. "Renee, you're okay. Just try to relax."
Renee does her best to do that – relax – but she knows Janis is wrong. She isn't okay. The pain in her abdomen and chest is ridiculously intense and her head is pounding; her throat is dry and sore; she's uncomfortably cold. And Janis herself sent 'Cole' to get help. How the hell can she be okay?
Now the itching in her nose is back and she pulls her hand from Janis' gentle grip. Her arm is heavy and clumsy in its response but finally, her fingers encounter something firm along her cheek and near her nose. She pulls at it, relieved when the itch immediately goes away.
What the hell?
She opens her eyes to look at the clear plastic tube in her hand. Oxygen tubing. At the same moment, she registers the thin plastic bracelet around her wrist and a tenderness in the bend of her elbow. She straightens her arm enough to glance at her inner elbow, seeing the IV catheter taped down there; when she reaches for it with her left hand, she finds a splint of some sort encasing her hand and wrist.
It's these discoveries that finally lead her to the realization that she's in a hospital.
Slowly, she tilts her head toward Janis, feeling an odd tenderness in the side of her stiff neck as she does it.
"Janis," she tries, her voice cracking, still sounding more foreign to her ears than it should, "What happened?"
Janis gently takes her hand and squeezes it again. "You were shot, Renee," she answers softly, sneaking the oxygen tubing back into place, "You're in the hospital."
In spite of Renee's attempt to keep them open and trained on Janis, her eyes fall shut again. She was shot. Something about that makes sense to her and yet for the life of her, she can't remember it happening.
She doesn't get a chance to ask anything more however, because in the next instant, there is a doctor at her side posing questions of his own.
Giving Dr. Higgins space to examine Renee, Janis steps over to a corner of the room and pulls out her cell. Even as she places the call, she keeps an eye on the situation nearby. The doctor had left the room only moments before Renee woke up, having just been in to check on her. Now, he's back, asking questions and flashing a light in her eyes.
The moment she hears Chloe's voice in her ear, she turns toward the window.
"She's awake," she says quietly, feeling Renee's heavy-lidded and glassy blue-green eyes on her.
"I know. I just got off with Cole. How is she?"
Janis' attention drifts back to Renee. As the doctor continues asking questions, Janis starts to feel uneasy. Renee seems to be having trouble coming up with the right answers. Though she's correctly given her name and that of the president – or the newly former-president – she is way off on the date. And she thinks she's back in D.C.
She doesn't miss Renee's confusion when the doctor corrects her.
"Janis?" Chloe prompts impatiently, just as the doctor bends to listen to Renee's chest. He has her take a deep breath and Renee immediately starts coughing, triggering her to cry out in pain again.
"Janis?" Chloe says again, clearly having heard Renee through the phone, "What's going on?"
"Sorry…" Janis hesitates. The sharp look of discomfort on Renee's features leads a grimace to find its way on to her own face. "The doctor's examining her now."
"And?"
Janis listens as the doctor asks Renee more questions. It quickly becomes clear she's having to search for the answers – answers she should know without even thinking.
Renee meets her eyes just before another deep grimace crosses her face and Janis can tell she is struggling to bite back another groan.
"Janis! What's wrong?"
There's a hint of panic in Chloe's voice now and it draws her back into the conversation.
"She's…" Janis frowns. "She's awake and talking. But she's in a lot of pain right now."
"And?" Chloe asks again as if sensing there is more to it.
"And I think she's having trouble…" Janis pauses. She wants to say Renee is having trouble thinking but she's not quite sure that's it. "I don't think she remembers what happened. Actually, I think she's having trouble remembering a lot of things right now."
"What makes you think that?"
"Hold on…" Janis says, listening as the doctor begins to quietly explain Renee's medical status to her. She can sense that Renee isn't quite getting it.
"What makes you think that, Janis?" she hears Chloe demand again.
Janis turns away from Renee for a moment, irritation and worry temporarily getting the better of her.
"Oh, I don't know," she whispers harshly, "Maybe it's the fact that she just said she works for the FBI and was asking for Larry a moment ago!"
The silence on the other end of the line isn't comforting and she can almost picture Chloe pressing her lips into a deep frown.
"All right," she hears the other woman grumble finally, "I'll be there soon."
Before Janis can respond, Chloe hangs up.
Pocketing her phone, Janis turns back to Renee, watching and waiting while the doctor moves on with his exam. A grimace appears to have permanently settled on Renee's face and she seems to be struggling to keep her eyes open.
As he shifts the sheet to uncover Renee's legs, Janis' fears about the damage done near Renee's spine immediately resurface. She takes her lower lip between her teeth and her dark eyes anxiously dart back and forth between Renee and the doctor as he begins checking her reflexes, sensation and movement.
Her heart sinks when it quickly becomes apparent that Renee is at least partially numb. And though she is able to shift her knees when asked to bend them, it seems to take much longer than it should and the movement is so slight Janis would've probably missed it if she hadn't been staring at them so intently.
Janis draws her brows together, worried. She wants to think that even that little bit of a response is a good sign, but she's no doctor and the man who is isn't giving anything away in his expression or his words.
Moving to the foot of the bed, he runs a metal instrument up the soles of Renee's feet. Next, he instructs her to wiggle her toes. Janis holds her breath but finally, a long moment later, she sees a few of Renee's toes slowly move.
Finally, the doctor covers her legs again and moves back up to the head of the bed.
Janis listens as he begins explaining about swelling near Renee's spine as a result of the bullet and the surgery and how, hopefully, the numbness and weakness will improve as the swelling resolves.
She slowly blows the air from her lungs, wanting to feel some sense of relief at that. And when Renee looks back at her this time, she tries to give her a reassuring smile.
Renee does not smile back and, seeing the questions brewing in her eyes, she is glad that Chloe's on her way.
Renee shifts her attention from Janis back to the doctor, trying to remember his name. Hilton. No. Higgins.
She thinks.
A tall and thin middle-aged Caucasian with receding dirty blond hair, green eyes and a Midwestern accent, he is talking as he lifts the side of her gown to check the dressing on her abdomen, explaining something about her surgery. She tries to absorb the details of what he's saying but he's talking too fast and her head is still pounding.
She follows his eyes, glancing down to find a long, white rectangular dressing taped down over the space between her navel and her breastbone. It is partially stained with blood and there's a tube of some sort coming out from beneath it. It looks like there's blood in the tubing and she traces the length of it with her eyes – only to find that it disappears beneath the sheet off to her side.
He's still talking to her as he switches his attention to the right side of her chest. Again, she shifts her head and follows his eyes, catching sight of the edge of yet another bandage. She winces as his fingers explore the tender area around it but it isn't until he accidently shifts the tube tunneling under the dressing that she realizes there's one there. The movement of the tube elicits tiny electric jolts of pain in the right side of her chest and suddenly explains the sharp discomfort she's been having in that area since that first coughing spell.
He's still talking and she shuts her eyes, wishing he would slow down so her brain might have a chance to catch up.
At this point, all she's really sure of is that she was shot and that she had to have surgery to remove the bullet – which had, if she understands correctly, ended up near her spine. She thinks he said there was some damage to some arteries and her lung and… and something about her liver. But she also thinks he said all of those problems have been repaired. There had been something a few minutes ago about blood loss and… and something else but really, most of the details seem to have already evaporated from her brain.
Still, she knows a few things for certain.
She knows that her abdomen and chest hurt in a way she's never experienced before and that her head is throbbing as if in an effort to match the intensity of the pain in her torso. Her left wrist is tender in its brace as is the side of her neck where she's discovered another IV line. Her throat is sore. Her hips and legs feel as though they have fallen asleep in some places and in others, they tingle as if just waking up. She's still cold and the lights are too bright. She's also pretty sure she'd kill for a glass of water – not just for the moisture, but to rid herself of the thick taste in her mouth as well.
It occurs to her now, after making that mental list, that maybe she should be feeling much more anxious and alarmed than she actually is. She's too calm. Isn't she? After all, Janis seems more worried and upset than she feels. She tries to think of why that is.
Finally, the doctor seems to be wrapping it up and she opens her eyes to look up at him, finding his sharp, green eyes studying her.
She tries to moisten her lips, succeeding only in the most minimal of ways.
"So what's the bottom line here?" she asks, her voice still just above a coarse whisper.
"The bottom line, Renee, is that you just survived a trauma that by all accounts should've killed you. But…" he pauses to offer her a small smile, "You were incredibly lucky. The fact that your friend brought you in so quickly probably saved your life. That, and the fact that, among other things, the bullet somehow missed causing catastrophic damage to your major blood vessels. Given time and barring any major complications, I'm optimistic about your recovery. And for a while there, that's not something we were at all confident we'd be saying."
Renee frowns. She'd been hoping for an uncomplicated answer, something easy for her to process, but that was too simple.
"And when will the numbness and tingling go away?"
As he explains about the swelling near her spine, she gets the impression that he's already covered this territory with her. Still, the information he is sharing feels new.
"… and the fact that you're able to flex your knees and move your toes – even that little bit – is a good sign. But the neurosurgeon will be a better judge and she'll be in to see you later."
Renee remembers now. His name is Higgins. He had introduced himself as the intensivist on duty and mentioned that he is only one of several physicians involved in her care.
She hopes they don't all talk so fast.
She tries to push her hair off her face, her fingers getting only so far before they encounter a small mass of tangles. The pain even that much movement has elicited in her chest and abdomen stops her from going any further with the motion and she drops her hand to rest on her chest.
She glances at Janis again, finding her still standing in the corner. The woman is nervous and worried and it doesn't make her feel any better.
Switching her attention back to Dr. Higgins, she frowns. "I don't…" She hesitates. "I don't remember how this happened," she admits finally, unable to stop her voice from betraying a hint of the anxiety she's at last beginning to feel, "And my head…"
Feels like shit, she finishes silently, letting her eyes fall shut, feeling them sting.
Slowly, she slides her hand down to rest over her upper abdomen and the dressing in place under the gown. She's tired – so incredibly tired. She can feel something, a darkness, threatening to pull her under even as she struggles against it. And the pain is so… irritating. It hurts to breathe. It hurts not to breathe.
"…sustained a minor closed head injury on top of… "
She hears Dr. Higgins talking and tries to concentrate on his words. She only catches a few phrases.
"…traumatic in more ways than one… …concussion… …chance to work itself out… …give it some time…"
That's right, she'd asked a question, hadn't she? No, that isn't quite true. She tries to remember what it was they had been talking about, only to find herself wondering instead what happened to the man called 'Cole.' Had he even been there in the first place? Or had her brain played a trick on her?
She must drift off for a moment because the next thing she knows, she's hearing Dr. Higgins call her name again.
"Renee?"
Reluctantly forcing her eyes open, Renee tries to refocus on the man standing next to her bed. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I've ordered something for the pain but I want to verify that you're not allergic to any medications. According to the file we were sent…"
She stops listening as she tries to think. Allergies… Bee stings, she remembers. Bee stings and grass. But medications?
"No," she breathes at last, "Nothing."
Her attention flickers back to Janis, who has finally gravitated back to the side of her bed; she is still wearing her anxiety on her sleeve.
And now the doctor is talking again – something about sending in ice chips and pain medication and checking in on her later.
Renee slowly shakes her head. As good as the pain medication sounds, as wonderful as it sounds, she can't go there yet. "I need to speak with Agent Gold first."
Dr. Higgins voices his understanding but Renee doesn't miss the 'don't take too long' look he directs at Janis as he turns to leave. Just as he reaches the door, Renee stops him.
"When can I get out of here?"
Dr. Higgins chuckles softly. "Let's try not to get ahead of ourselves here. You just woke up."
With that, he turns and leaves them. The moment the door closes behind him, Renee looks up at Janis.
"Were you talking to Larry?" she asks, her voice finally starting to sound more like her own.
Janis pulls her brows together and shakes her head. "No, Renee. It wasn't Larry."
The woman says nothing more, merely tucking her dark hair behind her ears and glancing uneasily at the door. Renee frowns tiredly and forces herself to keep her mind focused as best she can.
"Janis…" she starts, blinking slowly, "What the hell is going on? How did I get here?"
"What do you remember?"
With the fatigue and pain already grating on her nerves, she begins to register more of the frustration now. "Clearly, not everything I should. Just… " She closes her eyes, the pain that comes with every breath only adding to her annoyance. "Just tell me, please."
"It was a sniper shot, Renee."
Sniper?
Opening her eyes, Renee pulls her brows together and tries to process that. It takes her a moment to consider it and it still doesn't make sense when she's done. "I wasn't… I wasn't wearing a vest?"
"Well, you weren't…" Janis glances at the door again. "I mean, it wasn't…"
Renee exhales, grimacing as the muscles shift. She doesn't like Janis' expression. "Spit it out, Janis."
"It wasn't an op, Renee."
Renee's brow furrows even deeper. She's been shot. How was it not during an op? "What do you mean?"
"I mean it wasn't an op. So you had no reason to be wearing a vest. You…" Janis draws a deep breath and exhales. "You were with Jack Bauer when it happened."
Renee lowers her gaze at the name.
"Jack Bauer…" she breathes, trying hard to concentrate. The name feels familiar on her tongue.
She raises her right hand to rub at the side of her head. If the headache would just die down, maybe she could think better, faster. As it is, it's another long moment before flashes of vague memories finally come to her.
Arguing with Larry. Striding into a Senate subcommittee hearing. A thick file on her desk, the word 'confidential' emblazoned across the front of it.
She drops her hand, letting it rest on her chest again. God, she's tired.
"You remember Jack," she hears Janis say. "Don't you?"
Closing her eyes, Renee slowly shakes her head, even as another memory crops up.
A handsome, blond-haired, green-eyed man in a suit and tie. Jaded and reluctant. Sitting in her office with disbelief on his face as he studied a grainy photo.
"Jack Bauer…" she repeats to herself, having finally matched the name to a face.
As if sensing that she is trying to work through it, Janis thankfully remains quiet. Slowly, as if travelling through a thick fog, more pieces of the puzzle come.
She remembers Jack Bauer angrily growling at her, his voice coarse and clipped.
"You can either walk or I can drag you."
She remembers Jack Bauer's tight grip on her as he spun her around and that same voice, this time tempered with a hint of reassurance, whispering harshly in her ear.
"Renee, if you trust me, I will get you through this alive."
She remembers Jack Bauer shoving her to her knees before he shot her in the neck.
She remembers Jack Bauer and… and… Tony Almeida burying her alive – the weight of the soil and the smell of blood and plastic and dirt overwhelming her, inducing a panic she had struggled to control.
She remembers Jack Bauer seizing on the floor of the bullpen…
"Renee?" Janis finally breaks the relative silence of the room, "Do you remember Jack?"
Opening her eyes, Renee winces. Damn, her head hurts. And the lights are still too bright.
What had the doctor said? There was arterial damage? And something happened to her lung... And… And something about fevers…
She pinches the bridge of her nose, wishing her brain didn't feel so sluggish, wishing her mind would stop trying to wander off on its own, wishing the pain would go away. And that someone would dim the damned lights.
"Renee?"
"Just a minute…" she whispers, hoping to satisfy her friend for a few moments longer.
She drops her hand to her side, her eyes flickering from one point to another without really focusing on what they are seeing.
Jack Bauer. They were talking about Jack Bauer.
Yet her next snippets of memories are not of Jack. Not really. She remembers Marika Donoso and the deep sense of failure at being unable to keep her safe. She remembers how, from the beginning, the situation with Marika had struck a chord, unexpectedly taking her back to a time just a few years prior when, while undercover, she'd enlisted the aid of another young girl. She remembers how that girl had also paid the ultimate price.
She recalls swimming for her life. Then running for her life. She recalls Carol Vossler and her child. She remembers Larry suspending her from the FBI.
And she remembers arguing with Larry. About Jack. About Jack's tactics. About her tactics.
She remembers Bill Buchanan, dead at Jack's feet; remembers how words in that moment felt inadequate but she felt compelled to say them anyway; and how what she saw in him as he sat there on the floor, destruction and death surrounding him, made her chest ache.
Then Larry was telling her about Jack and the military-grade bio-weapon.
"...Jack was exposed."
She remembers now.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, something had changed for her when it came to Jack Bauer. She hadn't really recognized it until that moment in the holding room at FBI headquarters. Nor had she really been able to clearly define it. But she remembers feeling something shift in her chest as she stood there.
Next to Larry.
Then there was Jack, calmly standing in front of her as he said the words...
"I'm infected…
…It's fine."
She remembers the clenching, almost-painful sensation resonating deep within her as she watched him walking away from her.
It isn't fine, Jack, she had wanted to say. He'd been infected with the prion variant. It was anything but fine.
She remembers the intense worry she'd felt as his condition worsened over the course of the night; how the mounting sense of loss confused her even as she tried to keep it separate from everything else that was happening at the time; and how the inexplicable feeling of protectiveness toward him that began at some point earlier in the day only seemed to grow.
A long moment later, the memory of Tony's betrayal finally starts to surface in her head.
"Was it Tony Almeida?" she asks, shifting her gaze back to Janis.
"That shot you, you mean?"
"Yeah."
Janis shakes her head. "No. That situation was resolved, Renee. Tony Almeida is in prison."
That surprises Renee and she has to replay Janis' words in her head twice in order to fully understand them.
Then she recalls shooting Tony in the shoulder. And his parting rant at Jack as he was taken into custody. And Jack…
Jack was dying.
Renee releases another breath from her lungs and, with a soft groan, sinks further into the bed. Her hand instinctively finds her abdomen again and she rests it there in the hope that the light pressure might help her breaths to not be so painful.
With the next memory that surfaces, she finds it difficult to breathe altogether.
She shuts her eyes, feeling the tears sting and linger in them as she tries to swallow past the tightening in her dry and sore throat. It's a long moment before she can bring herself to even form the words.
"Larry's dead," she finally whispers.
"Yeah."
Renee presses her lips together to keep them from trembling even as more memories rise. Memories she wishes had stayed buried.
Alan Wilson sitting in shackles in front of her with an arrogant smirk on his face – a smirk that had so quickly disappeared. The intense anger washing over her just before the cold detachment settled in. Her hands inflicting pain; her skin speckled with blood.
She opens her eyes now but keeps them trained on the white sheet covering the lower half of her body.
"Wilson," she says flatly, "Was it his group? Some sort of… retaliation?"
"No. Renee, look -"
"Janis," Renee cuts her off, her gaze unwavering from the sheet. She's grown tired of this… this guessing game. "It hurts to think. Please. Just -"
She stops, almost flinching as a slew of new memories hits her all at once. There was a complaint lodged by Carol Vossler – something that had been the least of her troubles in the end because she was the subject of an investigation by both the FBI and the Attorney General's office after what she'd done to Tanner and Wilson.
"Renee?"
Not only had she lost Larry, the anchor, friend and confidant who had become the only family she had left, she'd lost – no, she'd thrown away – the career that had become her life, the career that meant everything to her. The reputation she'd worked so incredibly hard to build and establish had been left in shambles. And, according to the FBI, someone had apparently taken a magnet to her moral compass.
She had been facing the very real prospect of federal prison time – only to ultimately find herself incarcerated in a different kind of confinement altogether, one more… self-imposed.
Now, rather than continue trying to ignore the physical pain, Renee tries to focus on it, hoping it will be enough of a distraction that it will overpower everything else.
She feels Janis gently squeezing her shoulder and she tries to concentrate on that too. Then she focuses on the anxiety in her voice.
"Do you need me to get a nurse?"
Renee's attempt at diversion fails and she can actually see, on the blank canvas of the sheet covering her legs, the looks on her colleagues' faces – her friends' faces – as she was escorted from the FBI building for the last time. She can see the expression on President Taylor's face as she stood across from her in a conference room and sharply reprimanded her.
She recalls the white sterility of the holding cell at the Justice Department. It was cold and empty and the claustrophobic sensation it was built to induce might have unnerved her had she been able to feel anything significant in the time she spent there.
She remembers it now, that absence of feeling. The familiar icy numbness that had once been her companion years before had returned to pull her into its grasp again, taking root at a point during the course of that day that she could never precisely determine; the same numbness that had almost completely enveloped her in those moments after her colleagues finally broke into Wilson's interrogation room.
God, what she wouldn't do to get that back right now, even for a short time.
She tilts her head back and closes her eyes. She can feel the tears rising in her throat again as something begins churning deep within. Something familiar. Something dark.
"Renee?" she hears Janis saying her name again and she can't believe the woman is even talking to her after what she's put her through, "What is it? What's wrong?"
Renee shoves the tears down, swallowing hard and setting her jaw. When she speaks again, even she can recognize the change in her voice. Colder. Deeper. Hardened. "I think I'm ready for those pain meds now."
"Renee… Please, talk to me."
Renee clenches her teeth. "Please, Janis."
She can sense Janis lingering at her side but she still doesn't open her eyes. Finally, a long moment later, she hears the woman sigh and step toward the door.
It's then that Renee opens her eyes – but she doesn't look at Janis. If she had, she'd see the man named 'Cole' standing in the hallway as the curtain slides back and the door is opened. Instead, Renee glances down at her right wrist, shifting it just enough to get a glimpse of the scars now living there.
Questions and answers no longer matter. Neither does the cold or the pain or bright lights.
What matters is that silent darkness, that emptiness that engulfed her just a short time ago and has been pulling at her since she first opened her eyes. It was so much more comfortable a place than this. It was simple and free of complications and other people's demands and expectations. It was free of the failures and mistakes, free of the losses and the judgments.
She misses it. Desperately. And so she closes her eyes once more, intentionally seeking it out, no longer fighting it from taking her away.
She hears the curtain move but she keeps her eyes shut, ignoring the nurse as he or she fiddles with her IV.
"Renee," a feminine and unfamiliar voice says, "I'm giving you some Dilaudid now. You should start feeling some relief very soon."
Renee says nothing. The memories returning in the last few minutes have brought back with them the frosty blend of anger, self-loathing and indifference that has seemed to occupy her soul in some fashion or another for… too long. She knows she should push it away and she tries. But it clings to her as if part of her skin.
A couple of minutes later, she hears the door slide shut as the nurse leaves the room.
"Renee, I…" she hears Janis hesitate and still, there is anxiety and concern in her voice. "I really wish you'd talk to me. Please. Tell me what's going on."
Renee remains silent, wishing to God her brain had just stopped with remembering the file on her desk. Or being shot and buried alive. Or even Marika. She would've taken that. She might've been okay with that.
She feels the fog settling over her now, relaxing her muscles a bit as the narcotic begins to take effect. Any other time, she would probably fight the drugged haze, dreading the lack of control that it can bring with it. But at this moment, under these circumstances, she welcomes it.
And it's now – in the moment just before the oblivion mercifully swallows her again – that the memory that surfaced after she first woke makes a return engagement.
The repeated and insistent phone calls from the number she didn't recognize.
It was CTU.