24: Only The Beginning

by BrontaesInspiration

Set 6 months before season 1: Jack struggles to find grounding in a failing marriage and hectic work life. Assigned to security at the annual Health Innovations Conference in Las Vegas, Jack Bauer and Nina Myers team-up. Nina works toward another cause, unannounced to Jack, while Jack finds comfort and familiarity within her. Meanwhile, a plot to attack the conference builds.

1. Prologue

Prologue

Distance. Silence. Loneliness. These weren't phrases he'd hoped to use when thinking of his home. His marriage. He could have never predicted where they'd end up. The ebbs and flows of life that led them both to this. This emptiness; this hollowness.

When looking back, he wasn't quite sure when or where they'd gone wrong, he simply knew they had. Now, as he lay next to his once adoring wife, eyes on her as she sleeps softly, he can only think of her.

'Get it together, Jack. You promised everything to her and instead, you've given her nothing.'

Purposeless, painful thoughts flowed through him. Her face had lined, he noticed, the last few years of sleepless nights, worried thoughts and the utter exhaustion of being his wife had finally caught up to her. He wasn't worth any of it, that he knew for certain. It was never-ending love and comfort that she'd provided him, while he fell short and only delivered never ending disappointment and lonesomeness. He wasn't sure why he'd expected anything less, you can only leave someone so many times before suddenly, you don't know what had brought you together in the first place. That understanding, that loyalty, that friendship, gone.

'It's all because of you. You did this.'

Yet, somehow, through all of these hateful, sorrowful thoughts, she was still his main focus. She, who was not lying beside him, who was not the woman he'd promised everything to. Who was not the mother of his child. Her.

He reached for his phone and typed out a small message. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow." He began, he sat momentarily still, thinking of his next words. "Have a good night's sleep, I'll see you tomorrow." Sent. He glanced toward Teri once again, a tinge of guilt pulsed through his stomach.

''Stop while you're ahead, Jack.'

"Hey, you. Looking forward to it, too. Sleep good, don't dream of me. ;)" He chuckled quietly and then quickly composed himself. Debating on his answer, he knew the further he went into this, the harder it'd be to come out.

"I'll try not to, but you're not easy to forget." His sleeping wife stirred beside him, he quickly shut his phone and set it aside.

'What are you doing?' If only he knew.