"A little farther…is it at the point of tightness?" asks Dr. Jacobsen.
"Yeah…" I lean forward a little bit more and hiss.
He pulls me back with one hand flat beneath my collarbone. "Not too far, Ms. Walker. We don't want you to aggravate the injury."
"Aren't we already aggravating it?" I say.
"No, we're nurturing the muscle by refusing to baby it. But there's a difference between not babying a muscle and pushing a muscle too far." He gives me a pointed look from behind his glasses.
"Right. Sorry."
"Don't worry about it. Just remember that you can't accelerate this process beyond its natural momentum." He lets go of my arm and writes something on his clipboard.
"I'm not the most patient person in the world," I say, rotating my shoulder experimentally.
"No, I don't believe you are. But you do seem to be a very practical person. Simply allow that aspect of your personality to overrun your impatience – at least in this area." He smiles at me.
"Easier said than done, Dr. Jacobsen."
"Naturally." He puts down his clipboard and rubs his hands together. "Are you ready to try again?"
"Yes."
"How was physical therapy?" Jack asks.
"It was fine," I say.
He turns off the TV and gets up. "You don't sound too happy," he says.
I pocket my key. "It's not my favorite thing in the world," I say. "It's a lot of monotonous stretching. But, it's important, so…" I shrug. "What can I do, you know?"
He smiles, and it occurs to me that…yeah, he does know. That should have been obvious. "Kim dropped by while you were away. She wants us to come over for dinner tomorrow."
"That'll be nice," I say.
He steps forward and hugs me. "Stephen wants to use us as guinea pigs for his new sauce recipe."
"What, did Kim and Teri go on strike?"
Jack chortles and hugs me tighter. I grin against his shoulder. "And Teri wants to show us her pictures."
"Okay," I say. "Well, since tomorrow's all planned out, what do you want to do tonight for dinner?"
"Anything's fine with me," he says.
"Well, I'll go get something started." I'm starting to move out of his grasp when he tugs me back in. "Jack?" I say, grinning
"Why don't you go relax? I'll get dinner going. Go…take a nap, or a bubble bath…or whatever it is you females do to relax."
Despite the stereotype, a bath doesn't sound half bad. I doubt we have bubbles, though. The sudden image of Jack in a bubble bath makes me snort.
"What?" Jack says, looking quizzical. "That wasn't exactly the reaction I was hoping for."
"No, you're being sweet," I say, covering my chuckles with my hand. "Really. Thank you."
He gives me a small smile. "Okay. Enjoy yourself."
I start to step away again when he tugs me back, but this time he cups the back of my head and pulls me in for a kiss. I moan, and after a moment, he ends the kiss. "What was that for?" I murmur. "Feel free to do it again."
Jack gives me one more chaste kiss. "To remember me," he says, sighing dramatically.
Shaking my head, I brush his cheek. "I'd never forget you."
"Good to know."
I kiss him back, softly. He responds, and after a moment, I pull away. "One of us really should get dinner ready," I say, chuckling.
"You go, then. Relax." He kisses my forehead. "I'll call you when dinner's ready."
"Sounds great," I say.
He squeezes my hand one last time before going to the kitchen. I linger for a moment, then head down the hall.
What did I ever do to deserve him?
Jack raps his knuckles softly against the door. "Renee, honey? Dinner's ready."
"Great. I can't move."
He pauses. "You can't move as in you're so relaxed, or you can't move as in you injured yourself badly?"
"The former, Jack," I say, chuckling.
"Good," he says on a sigh. "Can I come in?"
Normally, yes. But there're stringy little blotches of blood in the bath, and no bubbles to cover them up. I shouldn't be embarrassed by a natural body cycle, but really, he doesn't need to see that. I sigh and heave myself up. "No, no," I say. "I'm up. I'll be out in two minutes, okay?"
"Where have I heard that before?"
"I heard that!" I smile.
"Take your time," he says more loudly. I roll my eyes and reach for the towel.
It maybe takes me five minutes to get decent and comfortable. I walk out to the kitchen, barefoot. "Mmm…something smells good," I say.
"Good." This time, he says it in a pleased tone, rather than a relieved one.
I kiss the corner of his mouth as I reach for an empty plate. "Thank you."
"No problem." He smiles.
We fill our plates and then each take a seat at the table. "So, you start work on Monday," Jack says.
"Yes," I say. "Monday, at 'one o'clock sharp.'"
"Do you know what the plan is?"
"I'm not sure," I admit. "I could be demonstrating skills or doing paperwork. I mean, she advertised for a teacher, but she seems like she'd rather have someone else do the paper-pushing."
"Then why not advertise for a secretary?" he says.
"Mmm…maybe she didn't want to trust anyone else with the documents. I don't know."
"Is that what you want? If it's not what you were looking for, there's nothing wrong in turning the job down. There's no rush, honey."
"It might not be what I expected, but it's not bad. My job at the D.C. FBI was mostly paperwork, too. Until the day we met, the only following-up on leads I did were very calm, very boring trips to posh offices. I just so happened to have field and martial arts experience before that," I say. Boy, did I have field experience. But I won't think about that now.
Jack seems to consider this. "I suppose so," he says. "When I first met you, you didn't strike me as a field agent, a rough-and-tumble type of person, and now I can't imagine you doing anything else." He grins one-sidedly.
"Really?"
He nods. I smile back. It's not quite a compliment, but it's not an insult either. It wasn't meant to be either…just an observation. If nothing else, Jack's very good at observation, which leads me to wonder how I could have possibly fooled him into not seeing the screwed-up person underneath me.
No. I shove the fork into my mouth. I've always thought raw spinach to be just a little bitter, and the large forkful shoots bitter sparks throughout my mouth. Serves me right for even skirting the idea of remembering the past. I know how dangerous that is.
When people say, "You're in denial," they always mean it negatively. They don't know that there are some things worth denying. It's how we – people who've committed atrocities for their country's sake – stay sane.
On this cool Saturday morning, I find Tania and Jeb on the basketball court.
"I don't know…how you…keep up with her…" Jeb pants as he jogs heavily to the sideline. Tania isn't even sweating. She tosses the ball up and it drops into the hoop.
"I don't," I say, grinning. "How has she been?" I add, more seriously.
"Ah…I haven't got a clue." He wipes his brow. "I can read market figures and consumer reports backwards and still understand them, but I can't read her and she won't talk to me."
Tania always seemed to be an open book. Maybe I just understand her moods because I see so much of myself in her…
"Hey Renee! Are you going to play with us?" Tania asks, bouncing the ball.
"Yes, please, help me," Jeb says, groaning. "I'm too old for this!"
"You're not old, Uncle Jeb. You're…like…32?" Tania says. She makes a face at him.
"Playing with her, I feel old," he says to me, rolling his eyes. "Well, how about it? Are you going to stop my niece from slaughtering me?"
"You know what? I think I'll just watch," I say. "After all, now I have a doctor and a physical therapist to take my head if I aggravate this wound." And, of course, there's Jack, but considering the injuries he's aggravated in the past, I don't think he's in any position to talk.
"Oh, right." Jeb looks sheepish for a moment. "How's it going?"
"Not too badly. I don't even need the antibiotics anymore; I finished them yesterday."
"Think fast, Uncle Jeb!"
He turns just in time to catch the ball against his chest with a grunt. "I'm coming, girlie," he says. Turning to me, he says, "Well, since you are injured, I suppose I can forgive you for sentencing me to my slaughter." He grins.
"Be gentle, Tania," I call out, laughing.
"But he'll never get into shape if I go easy on him," she protests.
"Ha-ha-hey, that was not called for," he says. His face is already red from the exertion of chasing a pre-teen around, so he'll be glad to know he's not blushing. Or, if he is, it's not visible.
She shrugs. "It's true, isn't it?" At his glare, she seems to realize that she's digging herself a hole, and she quickly changes the subject. "Go, quick! Score a basket so you'll be too busy celebrating to ground me!"
This spontaneous bit of humor from her slams into our funny bones. Jeb and I exchange looks as we bawl in laughter.
And then he does exactly what she said.
"Hi, Dad," Kim says, kissing Jack's cheek.
"Kim." He touches her cheek fondly.
"Jack," Stephen says, nodding with a smile.
"How have you two been?" Kim asks.
Jack takes my hand and smiles. "We're doing fine," he answers.
"Dinner in five." Stephen disappears into the kitchen.
"Teri turned the family room into a photo gallery," Kim says, leading us. When we see the pictures taped up at eye level – our eye level – Jack raises an eyebrow. "Well, I helped," Kim adds.
"Gotcha, Grandpa!"
Jack is startled, and we look down to see a five-year-old attached to the back of his legs. Relaxing, he chuckles. "Yes, you do, Teri-Bear."
"Yes, she does," Kim says drily, winking at me.
"Are you going to show your pictures to me and Renee?" Jack asks, ignoring his daughter.
"Uh-huh!"
He boosts her into his arms, and walks to the nearest photo. "This one first?"
"No, grandpa, that one!" She points to the first photo on the far wall.
Jack carries her over, and I follow. Any one of us adults would have gone consecutively around the room to look at them, but Teri's got other ideas. We bounce back and forth between pictures. They all have a childish quality by them, no rhyme or reason or careful planning of composition. They're adorable.
But it's one of the ones of Jack and I that move me the most. There are three of them. The first two are perfectly posed exactly the way she wanted, but the third one was captured just seconds before it was meant to be – instead of looking obediently toward her camera, we were caught glancing at each other. His love for me is evident in the picture; it's a sight I see all the time, though I never get bored of it. But it's my own image that startles me. Little Teri McAllen took a picture of a woman very much, very openly in love. Wow. Is that what Jack sees every day, just like I see it in him? I didn't realize... The picture seems to offer proof of something I already knew, but in the most tangible way: I am ridiculously in love with him.
"I want a copy of that," I say quietly.
Jack meets my eyes over Teri's head. "Me, too," he says, with a soft smile.
"Why?" Teri asks innocently. "You aren't even looking at the camera!"
"That's why we like it so much," Jack says. I smile. Damn, Bauer, get out of my head.
"Oh." Teri says this in a voice that says she's given up on understanding grownups.
I've just about given up on understanding us, too.
"Dinner's up!" Stephen calls from the kitchen.
"Be there in a second!" Kim says.
Jack puts his granddaughter down, and she leads him to the kitchen, struggling to pull him faster; he quickens his pace slightly, to humor her, but I know she could never actually pull him.
Kim hangs back with me as we go. "I can have the picture photo-copied for you," she says quietly.
There's a look in her eye I just can't identify. "Thank you," I say. She smiles.
"Okay, now, this sauce is an entirely new recipe. Be brutally honest – and don't worry, I have an ambulance on standby!"
Writer's Note: Renee and I needed a bit of fluff to offset the heavy stuff. :3 Thank you all for your reviews - you brought up some excellent points. I would write a more extensive writer's note, but I'm due for sleep. Darn mortality! ;) Chapter 2 of When We Fall may or may not get written and posted this weekend. It's going to largely depend on which characters, original and fanfiction alike, scream the loudest when I wake up tomorrow morning. XD If not this weekend, then Monday, I promise.