-24-
Jack took the sandwich of the agent and waved off his offers to return to the deli. Nina hadn't been in the room, and so there was no reason for the agent to question his list of requests after they'd counted the number of people. He and his partner had bought back several bags of sandwiches from an all night deli a couple of miles down the road, and they dealt out food to the hungry agents. At nearly four am they were all hungry, and hadn't eaten in several hours. One of the telephone clerks had bought a bag of cookies with them, but had had to defend them with their FBI training when Nina, Johnson and a few other agents had managed to steal some.
He doubted any other agents knew where Nina was; he hadn't had a reason to go get her so far. She'd been sleeping for nearly two hours, and the guy hadn't called during that time. Jack suspected his second bomb was going to be in the morning, and he'd been calling regularly up until about one am, and probably wanted to tire them out for his bomb in the morning.
Jack collected his sandwich and iced tea, and headed to the hallway. He shut the door to the next room, and made his way to the office he'd left Nina in to sleep. The lights were off, and so he didn't turn them on, instead pushing the door wide open, and hoping it would stay propped open to let the light in.
Nina was curled up on a couch far from the door. Her shoes were lined up in front of the couch, and she was deeply asleep, facing into the couch. Jack didn't particularly want to wake her up, but he also wanted her to eat something before it got cold. He went over to the couch and sat down on it slowly, trying to minimise the disturbance to the padding. He sat just beneath her feet, where she'd folded them up under her bottom, and put the sandwich and tea on the arm next to him. The sandwich was still hot, so he didn't have to wake her up immediately. The phone was in his trouser pocket, and it was silent at the moment. He fished it out to check the screen and then placed it on the arm of the chair with the food.
Jack reached an arm forward to shake Nina awake, but he stopped himself, and instead leaned back against the couch to take a look at her sleeping face. He couldn't really make her features out in the light, or with her hair folding over her face, but at least he knew where he face was, and that she was asleep.
Jack felt like some kind of weight had been lifted now that he'd told someone about him and Teri separating, he had told people before, but that was only in the mechanics of the actual separation, his landlord when he was getting sorted out with his new apartment, his bank when he opened a separate account for his expenses to be organised from. He'd even told a high school friend he'd seen in the mall and later had dinner with, but although they'd been close in the past, they weren't close now, and it didn't really seem real until he'd told it to Nina. It was nice to tell someone who actually cared, who knew him and was sorry for him, for although Jack didn't want pity, he did want a friendly ear, after all he did love Teri and Kim.
It did worry him slightly that Nina had twigged that he'd been more tightly wound than usual recently. He hated to think that he'd taken his frustration out on his staffers, especially when he'd prefer that most of them weren't aware he was married. Around a few colleagues, not those under his command, he'd have preferred to take off his wedding band in their presence.
In some ways it even annoyed him that he'd told Nina, he wasn't sure exactly why, or exactly how to phrase it so that his mind didn't get angry at him, but they'd always had a good working relationship, he trusted her to watch his back and he didn't doubt that she trusted him. They were also quite similar people, and were good friends - they didn't have time to talk about the minutia of their lives, partly because they didn't have time for the actual minutia itself, but he'd caught her doing little things, things that he knew would make them good casual friends, if they weren't already good working friends.
There was a distinction there that few realised existed, except those in his line of work. Nina and he worked together, but they had self- destructive jobs, and very little time for friends and other relationships. He had considered that maybe his relationship with Teri would have been easier if she had worked with him - their problem certainly wouldn't have been not seeing enough of each other, but a huge shock came to him, the first night in his new apartment, when he realised that they could never have worked together. Teri was smart in a different field, and he very much doubted she would make a good agent, and then like a sudden blow in the back of his mind, he realised that he wouldn't trust Teri in the field, and that sucked the air out of him.
The first day he'd met Nina she'd proceeded to do just that. Nearly three years ago, something they worked together on for four months, Operation Proteus, where she'd been assigned to him. Just dumped on his desk in a folder by Mason.
"She's going to be your operational director, Jack, so get used to it." Mason had told him, and Jack had been doubtful, not impressed with the paper credentials. He'd resigned himself to the fact, and when she eventually walked in he had to admit that the first thing he'd thought of was that she had a nice figure, and then as she approached, that she was attractive. Mentally matching her with her file, but then when she opened her mouth she'd knocked him out of the park. She knew her stuff, able to quote similar cases, suggesting tactics. Jack had thought about Kim revising for exams in the car before school and had compared them, but after a few minutes he'd realised she had a functional knowledge that was able to form ideas on the spot, something that he hadn't expected given his literature.
And when that finished, Mason asked him if he wanted to make any changes to his team at CTU.
So here he was with Nina, this brilliant agent that worked for him, smarter than him, most likely. She'd written papers, when she got too old she could be a lecturer or even a defense adviser, but for now she was his second, and he was thankful for that. He needed people like her behind him - and her work today had put an extra star next to her name. He was glad she was finally getting some sleep, even if he was about to wake her up.
Jack leant over her and used his left hand to support her back whilst he shook her upper arm lightly. Her entire body shook with it, the effect dampened to a gentle rocking by her hips, and she moaned, leaning back, intending to roll over, but stopped by his hand. "Nina." he whispered, from his spot over her, and he gently levered her body further onto the couch so she could lie on her back.
"Jack?" she queried, still not completely awake. She swallowed, and began blinking slowly, rubbing at her eyes when she shut them, and pushing herself in and along the couch until she managed to raise her head onto the arm of the chair.
Jack stood up from the couch for a second to allow her to stretch out her feet into a more comfortable and more ladylike position, he then sat back down in front of her legs, passing her the bottle of iced tea as he did so.
She twisted the bottle until it popped and sniffed the tea; it was too dark to read the label. "What time is it?" she asked into the dark liquid before she began to drink.
"Coming up on four," he replied.
Nina watched him over her bottle for a moment, and then her eyes bolted open, and she nearly spilled the drink as she moved it away. "Did he call?" she almost shrieked.
"No," Jack had to smile at how quickly she'd woken up, "no..I just bought you a sandwich..." He placed the warm chicken salad sandwich in her lap.
"Phew." she exhaled, relieved as she lowered herself into the couch. It may not have been the most appropriate sitting position in front of her boss, but she was tired, and hadn't eaten, so lying down seemed the best thing to do. She pulled the sandwich up and rested it on her chest, unwrapping as much as she could with one hand whilst the second one lowered her bottle of tea to the floor.
She reconsidered her position as the sandwich became increasingly more difficult to unwrap, and hoisted herself up, much in protest to her stomach and head that were beginning to feel the effect of lack of food, and being woken up too early. In her sleep she'd been hoping that the case would be solved before she awoke, and had actually dreamt that that had happened. Eventually she decided on sitting in a normal position on the sofa, and managed to pull the last piece of the foil wrapper off the sandwich. "Where's yours?" she asked Jack, reaching once again for the ice tea now she was comfortable.
Jack stumbled over a few words as Nina tore her sandwich and passed half of it to him. Jack didn't bother to object with her, too hungry to, and bit into his piece before she could do either.
They chewed in silence for a few moments, whilst Jack glanced surreptitiously across at Nina, who looked disheveled. Her shirt had thousands of creases, and her hair had obviously been scratched away from her face a few too many times. Her skirt had ridden up as she'd fidgeted to get comfortable, and Jack tried to avoid looking at the extra three inches above the normal six that he could see of her thighs. He dragged his eyes back up to her face, and watched as she stifled a yawn.
He didn't know how to launch himself into the conversation he wanted to have, and he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to talk to her about his divorce, or even assess his attraction to her at this time in the morning. He had no idea of how she'd react.
He didn't even realize that he'd been yawning.
"Do you want to catch some sleep here?" she asked him, gesturing to the bed as she took another bite. She chewed and swallowed it quickly, "I was going to go back out there as soon as I'd finished this anyway, it would make it..."
Jack rubbed a hand over his face, the last twenty hours worth of stubble scratching at his palm, and he pushed the last bite worth of sandwich into his mouth. He rotated himself on the sofa to face her as she trailed off.
"Nina." he began, attracting her attention without being entirely sure how to continue. She'd already taken the lid off of the bottle of tea when he spoke, and encouraged him to speak before she took a long sip.
She downed several mouthfuls worth of the cold liquid before she placed it back on the floor, before Jack spoke. There was a few more seconds silence as Jack debated what to do with his hands, eventually leaving them on his lap. "Jack?" Nina spoke his name, to encourage him to talk.
He paused, he had no idea what to say to her, he didn't need to thank her for listening, because she already knew. He didn't want to mention to her that he was attracted to her because she'd probably be offended.
"Jack?" Nina ducked into his field of vision, which had dropped to a spot on the couch arm behind her. "What's wrong?" she was beginning to get worried or suspicious of him, he wasn't sure which.
He muttered a few hurried 'yeah's to calm her down before shifting even further off the couch and patting it. "I think I'll catch a half hour or so." Nina got off the couch and turned, bending down to pick up her tea, and slip her feet into her shoes, whilst Jack stood to maneuver his way round her.
He sat back down on the couch and pulled off his shoes, and unbuttoned his cuffs as he slid himself back and into a lying position on the couch. He was halfway there, when he noticed Nina watching him. He raised a single eyebrow at her, and she snapped back into reality.
"When do you want me to wake you?" she asked him, preoccupying herself with folding the foil back around her sandwich.
Jack pressed the light down on his watch, checking the time before requesting, "Half an hour." he told her, believing he'd be out as soon as his head hit the pillow. "Unless...."
"Unless Dave calls." she finished for him, and made her way towards the door.
"Nina?" Jack called her back just as she grabbed the door handle. He collected the phone off of the arm chair and showed it to her. She walked back over and reached out a hand for it, and Jack handed it to her quickly. She took it, and pressed a button to check the key pad was locked.
He said her name again quickly before she turned to go, and she looked down at him. Jack felt a sudden rush of urgency, if he ever wanted to have anything with Nina he suddenly thought that this was the time to let her know. He gripped her forearm, and ran his thumb across the flesh inside her elbow. He held her arm lightly, giving her room to move away, and plenty of time to before he pulled her slowly towards him. She didn't try to pull back, sliding onto his lap, one leg fitting either side of his on the sofa. In the same fluid movement that she fell into him she lowered her head to his and they kissed passionately as Jack pulled her further into the sofa, eventually landing them comfortably stretched out across the length of the sofa.
Nina dropped the contents of her hand onto the sofa besides them, or where safe onto the floor, as she moved her hands across his chest and up to his chin until he suddenly broke the kiss. "Maybe we shouldn't do this right now." he told her.
Nina practically jumped off of him, grabbing her things like wildfire, but with a carefully injected amount of military calm until Jack grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him for another breathtaking kiss. She took a moment to soften to him this time, and eventually she pulled away. "I meant in here." he whispered to her, kissing her ear lobe. "Just in here." he cooed.
Nina smiled in his embrace. "How about you try for an hour's sleep?" she suggested.
Jack mumbled okay, and placed his arm on her back, pushing her gently off the sofa. She took the hint and grabbed her possessions and headed to the door, shutting it gently behind her and turning off the light in the main hall before she went back out onto the floor.
Jack took the sandwich of the agent and waved off his offers to return to the deli. Nina hadn't been in the room, and so there was no reason for the agent to question his list of requests after they'd counted the number of people. He and his partner had bought back several bags of sandwiches from an all night deli a couple of miles down the road, and they dealt out food to the hungry agents. At nearly four am they were all hungry, and hadn't eaten in several hours. One of the telephone clerks had bought a bag of cookies with them, but had had to defend them with their FBI training when Nina, Johnson and a few other agents had managed to steal some.
He doubted any other agents knew where Nina was; he hadn't had a reason to go get her so far. She'd been sleeping for nearly two hours, and the guy hadn't called during that time. Jack suspected his second bomb was going to be in the morning, and he'd been calling regularly up until about one am, and probably wanted to tire them out for his bomb in the morning.
Jack collected his sandwich and iced tea, and headed to the hallway. He shut the door to the next room, and made his way to the office he'd left Nina in to sleep. The lights were off, and so he didn't turn them on, instead pushing the door wide open, and hoping it would stay propped open to let the light in.
Nina was curled up on a couch far from the door. Her shoes were lined up in front of the couch, and she was deeply asleep, facing into the couch. Jack didn't particularly want to wake her up, but he also wanted her to eat something before it got cold. He went over to the couch and sat down on it slowly, trying to minimise the disturbance to the padding. He sat just beneath her feet, where she'd folded them up under her bottom, and put the sandwich and tea on the arm next to him. The sandwich was still hot, so he didn't have to wake her up immediately. The phone was in his trouser pocket, and it was silent at the moment. He fished it out to check the screen and then placed it on the arm of the chair with the food.
Jack reached an arm forward to shake Nina awake, but he stopped himself, and instead leaned back against the couch to take a look at her sleeping face. He couldn't really make her features out in the light, or with her hair folding over her face, but at least he knew where he face was, and that she was asleep.
Jack felt like some kind of weight had been lifted now that he'd told someone about him and Teri separating, he had told people before, but that was only in the mechanics of the actual separation, his landlord when he was getting sorted out with his new apartment, his bank when he opened a separate account for his expenses to be organised from. He'd even told a high school friend he'd seen in the mall and later had dinner with, but although they'd been close in the past, they weren't close now, and it didn't really seem real until he'd told it to Nina. It was nice to tell someone who actually cared, who knew him and was sorry for him, for although Jack didn't want pity, he did want a friendly ear, after all he did love Teri and Kim.
It did worry him slightly that Nina had twigged that he'd been more tightly wound than usual recently. He hated to think that he'd taken his frustration out on his staffers, especially when he'd prefer that most of them weren't aware he was married. Around a few colleagues, not those under his command, he'd have preferred to take off his wedding band in their presence.
In some ways it even annoyed him that he'd told Nina, he wasn't sure exactly why, or exactly how to phrase it so that his mind didn't get angry at him, but they'd always had a good working relationship, he trusted her to watch his back and he didn't doubt that she trusted him. They were also quite similar people, and were good friends - they didn't have time to talk about the minutia of their lives, partly because they didn't have time for the actual minutia itself, but he'd caught her doing little things, things that he knew would make them good casual friends, if they weren't already good working friends.
There was a distinction there that few realised existed, except those in his line of work. Nina and he worked together, but they had self- destructive jobs, and very little time for friends and other relationships. He had considered that maybe his relationship with Teri would have been easier if she had worked with him - their problem certainly wouldn't have been not seeing enough of each other, but a huge shock came to him, the first night in his new apartment, when he realised that they could never have worked together. Teri was smart in a different field, and he very much doubted she would make a good agent, and then like a sudden blow in the back of his mind, he realised that he wouldn't trust Teri in the field, and that sucked the air out of him.
The first day he'd met Nina she'd proceeded to do just that. Nearly three years ago, something they worked together on for four months, Operation Proteus, where she'd been assigned to him. Just dumped on his desk in a folder by Mason.
"She's going to be your operational director, Jack, so get used to it." Mason had told him, and Jack had been doubtful, not impressed with the paper credentials. He'd resigned himself to the fact, and when she eventually walked in he had to admit that the first thing he'd thought of was that she had a nice figure, and then as she approached, that she was attractive. Mentally matching her with her file, but then when she opened her mouth she'd knocked him out of the park. She knew her stuff, able to quote similar cases, suggesting tactics. Jack had thought about Kim revising for exams in the car before school and had compared them, but after a few minutes he'd realised she had a functional knowledge that was able to form ideas on the spot, something that he hadn't expected given his literature.
And when that finished, Mason asked him if he wanted to make any changes to his team at CTU.
So here he was with Nina, this brilliant agent that worked for him, smarter than him, most likely. She'd written papers, when she got too old she could be a lecturer or even a defense adviser, but for now she was his second, and he was thankful for that. He needed people like her behind him - and her work today had put an extra star next to her name. He was glad she was finally getting some sleep, even if he was about to wake her up.
Jack leant over her and used his left hand to support her back whilst he shook her upper arm lightly. Her entire body shook with it, the effect dampened to a gentle rocking by her hips, and she moaned, leaning back, intending to roll over, but stopped by his hand. "Nina." he whispered, from his spot over her, and he gently levered her body further onto the couch so she could lie on her back.
"Jack?" she queried, still not completely awake. She swallowed, and began blinking slowly, rubbing at her eyes when she shut them, and pushing herself in and along the couch until she managed to raise her head onto the arm of the chair.
Jack stood up from the couch for a second to allow her to stretch out her feet into a more comfortable and more ladylike position, he then sat back down in front of her legs, passing her the bottle of iced tea as he did so.
She twisted the bottle until it popped and sniffed the tea; it was too dark to read the label. "What time is it?" she asked into the dark liquid before she began to drink.
"Coming up on four," he replied.
Nina watched him over her bottle for a moment, and then her eyes bolted open, and she nearly spilled the drink as she moved it away. "Did he call?" she almost shrieked.
"No," Jack had to smile at how quickly she'd woken up, "no..I just bought you a sandwich..." He placed the warm chicken salad sandwich in her lap.
"Phew." she exhaled, relieved as she lowered herself into the couch. It may not have been the most appropriate sitting position in front of her boss, but she was tired, and hadn't eaten, so lying down seemed the best thing to do. She pulled the sandwich up and rested it on her chest, unwrapping as much as she could with one hand whilst the second one lowered her bottle of tea to the floor.
She reconsidered her position as the sandwich became increasingly more difficult to unwrap, and hoisted herself up, much in protest to her stomach and head that were beginning to feel the effect of lack of food, and being woken up too early. In her sleep she'd been hoping that the case would be solved before she awoke, and had actually dreamt that that had happened. Eventually she decided on sitting in a normal position on the sofa, and managed to pull the last piece of the foil wrapper off the sandwich. "Where's yours?" she asked Jack, reaching once again for the ice tea now she was comfortable.
Jack stumbled over a few words as Nina tore her sandwich and passed half of it to him. Jack didn't bother to object with her, too hungry to, and bit into his piece before she could do either.
They chewed in silence for a few moments, whilst Jack glanced surreptitiously across at Nina, who looked disheveled. Her shirt had thousands of creases, and her hair had obviously been scratched away from her face a few too many times. Her skirt had ridden up as she'd fidgeted to get comfortable, and Jack tried to avoid looking at the extra three inches above the normal six that he could see of her thighs. He dragged his eyes back up to her face, and watched as she stifled a yawn.
He didn't know how to launch himself into the conversation he wanted to have, and he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to talk to her about his divorce, or even assess his attraction to her at this time in the morning. He had no idea of how she'd react.
He didn't even realize that he'd been yawning.
"Do you want to catch some sleep here?" she asked him, gesturing to the bed as she took another bite. She chewed and swallowed it quickly, "I was going to go back out there as soon as I'd finished this anyway, it would make it..."
Jack rubbed a hand over his face, the last twenty hours worth of stubble scratching at his palm, and he pushed the last bite worth of sandwich into his mouth. He rotated himself on the sofa to face her as she trailed off.
"Nina." he began, attracting her attention without being entirely sure how to continue. She'd already taken the lid off of the bottle of tea when he spoke, and encouraged him to speak before she took a long sip.
She downed several mouthfuls worth of the cold liquid before she placed it back on the floor, before Jack spoke. There was a few more seconds silence as Jack debated what to do with his hands, eventually leaving them on his lap. "Jack?" Nina spoke his name, to encourage him to talk.
He paused, he had no idea what to say to her, he didn't need to thank her for listening, because she already knew. He didn't want to mention to her that he was attracted to her because she'd probably be offended.
"Jack?" Nina ducked into his field of vision, which had dropped to a spot on the couch arm behind her. "What's wrong?" she was beginning to get worried or suspicious of him, he wasn't sure which.
He muttered a few hurried 'yeah's to calm her down before shifting even further off the couch and patting it. "I think I'll catch a half hour or so." Nina got off the couch and turned, bending down to pick up her tea, and slip her feet into her shoes, whilst Jack stood to maneuver his way round her.
He sat back down on the couch and pulled off his shoes, and unbuttoned his cuffs as he slid himself back and into a lying position on the couch. He was halfway there, when he noticed Nina watching him. He raised a single eyebrow at her, and she snapped back into reality.
"When do you want me to wake you?" she asked him, preoccupying herself with folding the foil back around her sandwich.
Jack pressed the light down on his watch, checking the time before requesting, "Half an hour." he told her, believing he'd be out as soon as his head hit the pillow. "Unless...."
"Unless Dave calls." she finished for him, and made her way towards the door.
"Nina?" Jack called her back just as she grabbed the door handle. He collected the phone off of the arm chair and showed it to her. She walked back over and reached out a hand for it, and Jack handed it to her quickly. She took it, and pressed a button to check the key pad was locked.
He said her name again quickly before she turned to go, and she looked down at him. Jack felt a sudden rush of urgency, if he ever wanted to have anything with Nina he suddenly thought that this was the time to let her know. He gripped her forearm, and ran his thumb across the flesh inside her elbow. He held her arm lightly, giving her room to move away, and plenty of time to before he pulled her slowly towards him. She didn't try to pull back, sliding onto his lap, one leg fitting either side of his on the sofa. In the same fluid movement that she fell into him she lowered her head to his and they kissed passionately as Jack pulled her further into the sofa, eventually landing them comfortably stretched out across the length of the sofa.
Nina dropped the contents of her hand onto the sofa besides them, or where safe onto the floor, as she moved her hands across his chest and up to his chin until he suddenly broke the kiss. "Maybe we shouldn't do this right now." he told her.
Nina practically jumped off of him, grabbing her things like wildfire, but with a carefully injected amount of military calm until Jack grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him for another breathtaking kiss. She took a moment to soften to him this time, and eventually she pulled away. "I meant in here." he whispered to her, kissing her ear lobe. "Just in here." he cooed.
Nina smiled in his embrace. "How about you try for an hour's sleep?" she suggested.
Jack mumbled okay, and placed his arm on her back, pushing her gently off the sofa. She took the hint and grabbed her possessions and headed to the door, shutting it gently behind her and turning off the light in the main hall before she went back out onto the floor.