Eddie Jerome drove his beat up Chevy back across town to his bosses place and with it his new girlfriend. She sat against the door frame watching him in the cool darkness of L.A. at a little after midnight. The street lights twinkled by and every so often he caught a glimpse of her beautiful pale blue eyes as she smiled at him.

"Thanks Ed." She said in little more than a whisper. He pulled up in Tony's drive and closed his eyes remembering how he almost didn't have the guts to go inside earlier that night at all. 'Maybe she isn't ready for a relationship.' He had told himself, 'Maybe she just wants to be friends… Maybe this isn't what I think it is.'

"Maybe he is happy… he always used to say he'd love to have more time with his family… That officer said Laura wanted to be a teacher…" Kim said thoughtfully. "My Dad was going to be a literature teacher when he was younger… told me he almost went for a job at a middle school before he got the call from LAPD…"

"Jack! A teacher?" Eddie said quite obviously surprised. Kim looked a little hurt. "I'm sorry Kim; I didn't mean to offend you it's just… well Jack Bauer isn't exactly known for his patience and gentle manner."

"He used to be." She said softly. "He was a great Dad when I was little, he would read to me for hours and make up crazy stories about mice going on holiday and…" she trailed off.

"At least we know he's safe now Kim." Eddie said trying to make up for his previous attempts to cheer her up which ended up putting his foot in his mouth. She ignored him and just carried on reliving her own thoughts and memories.

"He'd tell me this story about these mice going out on a day trip… there were four of them, all youngsters… Mica, Molly, Maude and Monty." She smiled remembering the tale he'd told her over and over when she was growing up. Even when she was a teenager she'd always wanted him to tell her that story when she was sad and lonely… as if somehow it fixed everything… put it all back together again and when she went to sleep her Daddy had put everything right with the world.

"They found these milk bottle tops in a field and were convinced they were flying saucers and that aliens were going to take them away to another world; where things were always exciting and interesting and where it would always be shiny and new." Kim smiled and dabbed at a single tear as it rolled from the corner of her left eye and down the side of her nose.

Eddie watched her tell of a man he'd always thought he knew pretty well; and found that he had seemingly only ever brushed the surface of what it really meant to be Jack Bauer. He'd admired the guy ever since he started working with CTU. Jack had been head of the place then; and commanded a lot of respect until the investigation and dismissal of several of the team on charges of misconduct. A lot of people had lost trust in him then, even hated him; but not Eddie.

"Do you think he tells Alfie that story?" Kim asked as they walked up to the door and she struggled to find the right key for the locks. Eddie shrugged.

"I know he loves you very much Kim. You know he used to talk to me about you sometimes." She looked up surprised. Eddie smiled and nodded in answer to her astonishment. "I think it was because I was younger than the rest of the guys there, we would do research together on night shifts, when I was new to the place; and he'd tell me how he was really proud of you, that whenever the work was shitty he was thankful that he had his little girl to go home to… He said once that whatever horrors he had to face in the day it was all worth it knowing that he was making the world safer for you to grow up in." Eddie had a bittersweet smile on his face, which Kim took to be based on the concern he had for her.

The real reason was that he missed Jack a lot too. No one knew how much he admired Agent Bauer; he'd kept it well hidden that he did his own investigation as to where Jack might have gone. Eddie knew facts and figures… but he'd never known what lay behind them. He'd never really known the man up in that big glass office that he watched night after night. There were times when Eddie took overtime to stay on nights or swapped shifts to be there when Jack worked. He'd sat and smoked in the car park with him on breaks, talking about hockey and old cars and baseball games, but he'd never known what went on inside Jack's heart. Not until tonight.

"I miss him so much. I wish he would just call or something…" she paused and took a deep breath as though the question she was about to ask was weighted with lead and offloading it would be tremendously hard.

"Do you think he'll ever come back, Eddie?" She asked finally, as they went inside and up to her room. Eddie trembled at a thought that plagued him almost as much as it did the woman before him.

"I hope so, Kim. I really do hope so."