Another of those dreams had appeared in his sleep. This time, it took place in a churchyard and Alex knew exactly which one. The one where they had buried Teri all those years before. He and Kim were walking towards her grave when he noticed something on the stone itself. The carved letters and numbers showed only those of Teri and her years of birth and death. They had said that they had added Jack's name and dates after his funeral, but this stone did not show that. Even the flowers looked like the ones he had left the last time he had visited Teri. As they reached the grave, Jack jumped up from his hiding place behind the stone, before pulling out his gun. He shot Alex in the forehead before he disappeared. The last thing Alex saw before the dream ended, was the sudden appearance of Jack's name and dates on the stone.
It was the second day of their trip to Los Angeles, and they were preparing to visit Teri and Jack's grave. As they walked down the path, Alex felt unease even though he knew the dreams were not predictions. Still, he took a good look at the stone as they arrived, making sure to read each word and number. In gold lettering on black stone, it read "JACK BAUER 1966-2008" and "TERI BAUER 1965-2002". The flowers laid on the grave were very different to the ones he had seen the last time.
Both of them were so young when they died. They still had a lot of life left in them, but they both died violent deaths. I'm glad that Kim and myself are out of that world.
"Once we lay the flowers, do you want to have some time alone?" Alex asked her.
"I would like that, thank you, Alex," Kim replied and nodded. She had not been to visit her mother's grave in some years now. On the day of Nina's death, she had considered going there and letting her mother know at some point. That had not happened before they had decided to leave Los Angeles. Now her father was lying there too. She missed them both but felt comforted by their reunion.
After they laid the flowers they had brought, they stood in silence for a moment. Alex soon left Kim to give her some time alone and to make his own journey to a grave. Ten minutes away was another grave, where the FBI had helped lay Nina to rest. As he approached the plot, he saw something he had not expected. Someone had laid flowers on the soil and had done so within the last few months. He smiled at the idea that someone had thought of her, before laying fresher flowers next to them. Wondering if he should get her a stone marker, he stood there for a moment before deciding to speak to his sister.
"Hello, Nina, it's me. I don't know if you can hear me at all or if you even exist in any way anymore. I never understood your motives or reasons for becoming a terrorist, but I do know one thing. I forgive you, Nina, for everything," he began, not sure how much he wanted to tell her. He wondered how she would have reacted to his relationship with Kim, but decided to leave that for now.
"Jack died a few months ago, shot whilst doing his job. I felt conflicted about that. I lost a friend, a good friend, but at the same time something in me felt like it was justice," he continued. He had seen the tape of Nina's death that day. Whether it was self-defence or not, he couldn't decide, but he had a suspicion that it wasn't.
"Nina, I'm in love with Kim. Jack never liked that or agreed with it, and he tried to convince me to end it. We held on, kept going and now we live together somewhere far from here. He spent his last years without his daughter because he couldn't accept her choices," he told her.
"I'll try and visit again someday and tell you more about my life now. Goodbye, Nina," he finished. As he walked away from the grave, he considered having her moved to Chicago to be with their parents. Sure, it was still far away from Newport News, but it would feel like a reunion for them.
I can only wonder what they would have thought about everything that she's done. They wouldn't have recognised their daughter in her final years.
Returning to Kim and her parent's grave, he wrapped an arm around her as they stood in silence.
Hours later, they had returned to that park again. The one where they had held the secret meetings early on. This time, they had nothing and nobody to fear, able to be a couple enjoying a summer afternoon. They sat on the same bench they had used the last time they had been there. For some time, they sat in silence as if mourning their old lives.
"I'll never miss CTU," Kim said as she broke the silence. Although she had made friends because of it, life was far better now that the agency was in her past.
"I couldn't agree more. I never wanted to have anything to do with the place, I only began working at CTU to be close to my sister," Alex replied. He didn't want to mention Nina to Kim, but it was the truth. Working with Nina had been a way of being close to his sister, but he had no idea of the hell that was going to unfold. There had been no clues or warnings of how Nina had changed, he had thought about it so much over the years. Had there been something he had missed, some sign of the corruption within her?
"Still, we have each other because of CTU, so it's not all that bad," Kim spoke, before grinning. As they kissed, thoughts of their old job washed away in an instant. That included the shared anxiety that something would happen. That they would be somehow dragged back into CTU for some reason.