Smoke and Mirrors: Chapter 14
By Morganperidot
Renee let Kim into her apartment, set down the empty pizza box she was holding, and shut the door. Kim was dressed more casually than the expensive suit she had worn the last time she had visited there; this time it was a simple outfit of navy pants and a light blue blouse, with her hair pulled back in ponytail. Renee was wearing the standard jeans and solid-color t-shirt – this one being brown – that she wore when Jack was around. However, at the moment Jack wasn't around; earlier in the day Renee had seen him off at the plane that would take him to Kazakhstan in search of Kim's husband, Christopher Wilson. Then Renee had come home with a pizza…and was now facing Kim, who had something she wanted to discuss.
Renee watched Kim survey the apartment in a way so similar to how her father looked at things. Jack hadn't said much about what he had discussed with Kim in the call he made to her after he decided to go to Kazakhstan. Although earlier he had wanted to tell Kim about their relationship and the baby, Renee had disagreed, and he had gone along with putting it off at least until this business with Wilson was over. So she didn't think Jack had told Kim anything about them...so what did Kim want to discuss?
"Can I get you something?" Renee asked. "Coffee?"
"Water would be fine," Kim said softly, with a meaning-infused quiet tone that was also so similar to her father's.
As she got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, Renee thought about what she had read in Jack's file about Kim. The woman had certainly needed to grow up quickly, spending her late teens and early twenties surrounded by the kinds of losses and bizarre circumstances that most people didn't see one of in a lifetime. It was clear that she still maintained some bitterness against Jack, although Renee had no idea how their recent one-on-one discussions had gone, or why Kim had chosen now, when her father was thousands of miles away, to confront her. Renee had a feeling she wasn't in for a pleasant evening with Kim.
Renee walked over to Kim and handed her the bottle. "Thanks," Kim said.
"Please sit wherever you like," Renee said, and then she walked over to the sofa and sat.
"You have a nice place here," Kim said, glancing over at the big windows that looked out on Manhattan. "Is New York better than DC?"
"It's different," Renee said. "They both have their pluses and minuses."
"Right," Kim said. "Like everything." She sat on the other end of the sofa. "I know I was sort of abrupt the last time I was here," she said. "I'm sorry about that."
"Thanks, but that isn't necessary," Renee said. She noticed that Kim didn't look at her when she spoke, and Renee had reason to doubt the sincerity of her words. Kim had clearly learned some of Jack's tactics, but as would be expected, her skills in employing them weren't at her father's levels.
"Can we speak directly?" Kim asked.
"Of course," Renee replied.
"Are you in love with my father?" Kim asked.
"Yes," Renee said, simply and honestly.
"Does he love you?" Kim asked.
"Your father would have to answer that," Renee said.
Kim drank some water and set the bottle down on the coffee table. "You don't have to answer it," Kim said, "but I can tell that you think he does. I could see it the first time I was here. You think you know him because you've spent a few days with him and a few hours in his arms. But, Agent Walker, I'm sorry about this too. You don't really know Jack Bauer at all."
Renee sat straight against the sofa and held Kim Bauer Wilson's gaze. Somehow she wasn't surprised by all of this; after all, doubt was the most powerful weapon in any interrogation. Create doubt, and you get that claw-hold for tearing someone's whole reality apart. Create doubt, and everything that person thought they believed becomes an illusion. "And you're here to tell me who he is?" Renee said. "Why?"
"My father has hurt a lot of people," Kim said, "especially a lot of women who thought they knew him and loved him…and that he was capable of feeling the same." Kim released an exaggerated sigh. "You see, Agent Walker, my father is something only someone of his own flesh can really see," she said. "He's a monster."
Someone of his own flesh, Renee thought. Really? What about someone with his own flesh inside of her? "In what sense?" Renee asked calmly.
"I know you don't believe me," Kim said. "You think this is all about some grudge I hold against him. However, none of that matters to me anymore. I have a new life with Christopher. Once he's back with me you will never hear from me again, and neither will my father. I don't want his poison in my life."
"That sure sounds like someone holding a grudge," Renee said.
"What's true is true," Kim said. "Having him around is destructive, like pouring acid on yourself and everything else that matters to you. My father is a chameleon; he'll tell you that much himself. He camouflages himself to get what he needs from the situation he's in. He'll make you believe all kinds of things about him and his motivations, but it's all lies. I don't think there is any truth in him anymore. He just does what he does and then moves on to something else."
"So, your recommendation is that I cut Jack lose to protect myself?" Renee said evenly, holding back the bitter sarcasm and anger that wanted to drip into her tone.
"That would be wise," Kim said, "but I doubt you will."
"How is it you haven't seen Jack in years and yet you know him and his current motivations so very well?" Renee asked.
"He's my father…"
"What does Christopher think of Jack?" Renee asked. She realized she was slipping into her professional interrogation techniques, but she tried to keep it as low key as possible for the moment.
"Christopher supports me," Kim said.
I'll be he does, Renee thought. "How did you meet him?" she asked.
"I didn't come here to discuss my relationship with my husband," Kim said.
"True, but you did come here to tell me how things should be between me and Jack," Renee said. "I'm just wondering about your relationship credentials."
"I'm an expert on my father," Kim said, "not relationships." She stood up. "If you don't want to listen to me, that's your loss. And it will be a huge loss, I promise you that. My father will leave you, and he will leave you devastated." She walked toward the door.
"Kim, tell me one thing," Renee said. "Why did you get involved with Christopher? Did you know who he was and what he does? Did you do it to hurt your father?"
"Christopher is a good man…"
"He's a man your father despises," Renee said. "He's a man your father knows is dangerous…that's what this is, isn't it? You marry a bad guy and Jack has to come to the rescue, right? He has to show he loves you?"
"At least he does love me," Kim said.
"Yes, he does," Renee said.
"You don't know," Kim said. "You'll never know. My father's heart will only ever belong to his family, me and my mother. You'll never be anything more to him than the latest whore in the chain. You're only fooling yourself if you think otherwise." She opened the door and slammed it shut behind her.
Renee just shook her head for a moment, and then she sighed and went to the bedroom. She thought about Jack for a moment, good thoughts, safe thoughts. Then she undressed and went to bed. Kim's words continued to ring in her ears for a while, but she finally fell asleep.
* * * * * * * * * *
Renee went back to work. She focused on leading her team and not worrying about Jack…as much as she could avoid that anyway. A couple of times she thought about giving the team leader in Kazakhstan a call, but both times she decided not to. She didn't want to be the foolish woman checking up on her man. Jack would be fine; he had promised he would come back to her, and he would. Renee told herself she believed that.
She also told herself she didn't believe anything the Kim had told her. After all, Jack had been the one who had wanted to put their relationship "on the table" and tell Kim about the baby. But then what was their relationship? How did Jack see it? He seemed willing to acknowledge their child as his own…but was there any future with him beyond that? Did he want one? Renee knew there was no way to answer those questions without the man himself there, so the best thing to do was to set them aside for the time being.
Renee found some release from her concerns in her work, analyzing situations and leading her team both in the office and the field. Jack may not have wanted her with him in the field in Kazakhstan, but that wasn't going to keep her from being actively involved in her team's operations. She hadn't told anyone about the pregnancy other than Jack, and she didn't intend to reveal it until it became obvious to anyone looking at her. She had always kept in "FBI fighting shape," so she should be showing relatively soon. She would concern herself with how to deal with that issue when it presented itself.
A couple of days after Kim's visit, Renee's FBI team had located the headquarters of a new drug cartel, and she went to that location with them, leading the way. They rounded up most of the cartel with only minor injuries to the team; Renee received a nasty knife cut on her arm from one the cartel members, which ruined one of her favorite shirts but was easily stitched up by one of the FBI medics.
It was after that when she began worrying about Jack again and reconsidered the idea of just "touching base" with the team leader in Kazakhstan. Renee found his phone number and even started punching it into her phone before she thought better of it and hung up. She didn't want Jack to think she didn't trust or have faith in him. There was nowhere good that could lead. If he was already wary about a commitment he certainly wouldn't want to be saddled with a woman who was going to be looking into what he was doing every time he wasn't around her. Besides, she thought, there was no point to it; whatever was going to happen would happen. Calling wouldn't do either of them any good.
Back in her office, Renee leaned back in her chair and sighed. With Larry the things had never been like this, or with Billy, but this relationship was different, at a different level with a different type of man. After all there was no one like Jack, so no relationship would ever be like one with Jack. And the worst thing she could do was try to force it into some conventional mold that society had cooked up for itself.
Her phone rang. The caller ID was blocked, so she answered it officially, "Walker."
"So you had to go and get injured there?" Jack said.
Renee smiled. "Yeah, well, you know the job," she said. "How did you hear about it?"
"I have my ways," Jack said.
There was a silent moment, and then Renee said, "I wish you were here." She immediately regretted it, thinking it sounded too needy.
Then Jack said, "Me too." They let that silence play out as several warm, connected seconds between them.
"What's going on with Wilson?" Renee asked finally.
"He's with Blue Scorpion," Jack said. "We don't really know the situation, whether it's willing or not, but he's been spotted in that cell." Renee waited it out. "We're planning an operation, but to be honest it looks about twelve different shades of crazy to go in there," Jack said. "I can't really see an official operation taking shape."
Renee knew what that meant. "Don't do this on your own, Jack," she said. "Just don't. I know you gave your word to Kim, but this is too much to ask of you."
"I know," Jack said.
"But you're going to do it anyway," Renee said. She paused for a moment and knew she didn't want to hear any more. "Call me when you get back in the States," she said. "I love you."
"I love you too," Jack said.
Renee shut off the phone and set it on her desk. She was hurt and angry, and she hated it. She hated the stupidity of it, and she wanted more than anything to go to Kim and yell at her about the downright BS of it all. But she didn't; she just sat there and stared at the phone and wondered if that would be the last time she would speak to Jack.
* * * * * * * * * *
Renee didn't hear from Jack the next day, and at work she stayed away from any reports about Kazakhstan. She didn't want to hear about it that way; she didn't want to know what happened from some third-party source. When Jack came back he would tell her, and if he didn't…it was better not to know.
The next day, there was still nothing from Jack. Renee's confidence wavered, and she wondered if it made sense to even consider discussing a commitment with him. He was always going to be running off somewhere, and he certainly wasn't going to have the time for or interest in raising a child. She knew she would be better off not pretending that they were going to be a family. There was no way that was going to happen.
And even worse…what if he never came back?
Renee pushed that thought out of her mind as far as she could, but it was always there, always lurking. She could tell herself it didn't matter, that what they had was ephemeral at best anyway. She couldn't hold on to him. They were nothing more than transient lovers who would share a child. Jack wasn't going to be her boyfriend or her husband. There was nothing between them but mutual affection and a love child, and in the end that wasn't really anything.
Except it was something. Aside from her career it was everything, and it meant more to Renee than her career. Jack meant more to her, and she wanted him with her.
However, she was well aware that it was probably already too late. Her Jack might be gone forever, his life lost on some meaningless mission in Kazakhstan for a selfish daughter who didn't understand how valuable that life was.
Renee went to bed early that night, trying to use sleep to stop the sad thoughts that were trying to crowd their way into her mind. But lying on her bed in the darkness didn't do much to keep them out. She felt the tears building up, but she told herself no, not yet. He's coming back, she told herself. He has to.
When she finally fell asleep Renee had a dream in which she was leaving work and walking to her car. She saw Jack standing there dressed in black and wearing dark glasses; she waved to him, but then a moment later she was struck with a sharp pain to the gut and crumpled on the sidewalk in agony; when she was finally able to look for Jack, he was gone. When she woke, Renee found herself soaked in sweat and shaking, with tears rolling down her face. She put a trembling hand over her belly, certain that she losing the baby. But there was nothing, no pain, no blood, nothing but her heavy breathing in the dark, claustrophobic room. She swung her feet around and just sat on the side of the bed with her hands on her face weeping in a way that she hadn't for a long time, absolutely shaken to the core.
Renee flinched when her cell phone started to ring from where she had left it on the nightstand by the bed. After looking at it for a moment she wiped her face with her hands and reached for it in the darkness, flipped it open, and answered without looking at the caller ID, "Walker."
"What's wrong?" Jack said.
"Jack," she said. "Where are you? Are you OK?"
"I'm at the base," Jack said. "I'll be there in a half hour. What happened? Do you want me to send someone sooner?"
"It's OK," Renee said, but she could hear the shaking in her voice. "I'm OK. I just need you home."
"I'm on my way," Jack said.
"Thank you," Renee said, feeling foolish, but she just wanted to hold him in her arms. She shut off the phone and set it on the nightstand, then sat on the bed for a few moments longer trying to pull herself together before getting up and turning on the light. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. She just stood there with her eyes closed for several seconds. Finally she opened her them and went to the bathroom, where she showered, then dressed in a purple t-shirt and jeans and left her wet hair hanging loose.
Renee walked into the kitchen and got out a box of peanut butter cookies that she began to eat systematically while emptying a bottle of water. She was finally feeling steady again when she heard the door open and close – and Renee looked over at Jack as he pocketed his key. His white shirt and jeans were a relief to see. He walked over to her. "Are you really OK?" he asked. "The baby?"
"Yes," Renee said. "You?"
"I think so," Jack said.
Renee backed him up against a wall and pressed into his firm, strong body. "I need to feel you," she said. Jack held her against him and kissed her passionately. Renee slid her hands under his shirt and felt the muscles under his warm, smooth skin.
Jack brought his lips to her ear. "What about…"
"Later," Renee said. She saw his smile, and she took his hand and led him to the bedroom, where they chased away all the bad feelings and fear her dream had brought.
But later than night Renee was haunted by the same dream: Jack dressed in black at the car, the gut pain, Jack gone. She woke again trembling. "What's going on?" Jack asked softly from beside her on the bed.
"Something's wrong," Renee said.