Jack slammed the door with much more force than necessary when he walked in
the door to his house. The door lock engaged on its own, and he tore off
his sunglasses and slouched down on the sofa, running his fingers through
his hair and gripping a handful at the top of his scalp.
He didn't know what to do. Nina had only been working back at CTU for three weeks and she'd put in for a transfer request, the piece of paper he'd held in his hands at the office until it had come close to tearing. Nina had conveniently left for the evening when he'd returned to his office, and now he couldn't get a hold of her. She wasn't answering her cell or home phone, and when he'd driven past two hours ago, and then twenty minutes ago, she hadn't been in. As a last resort he'd driven past Tony's apartment, not really sure what to do if he discovered her there, and found his driveway empty only to discover him at CTU, busy working.
It was nearly two am, and if he was going to take Kim out before her driving test the next morning, he was going to need to turn in soon. He stood in the corridor for a moment, watching his keys on the table by the door as though they were about to move, to run and hide for him, much as he presumed Nina had done.
There was a knock at the door, whoever it was avoiding the doorbell, and he gripped the handle and pulled the door open with so much force it created a bit of a vacuum in its wake. Nina was standing on his doorstep, clutching a small bag he rarely saw her with over his shoulder. "I need a favour." She asked, walking past him and into his living room, ignoring his mood, which he projected with every subtle alteration in his body language.
"You need a favour? Isn't approving a transfer favour enough?" He asked her, keeping his voice low to avoid waking Kim.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." She told him, she watched him for a second, and then deciding, having judged his mood, and she spoke quickly. "Tear it up."
Having spent the last six or seven hours chasing her, trying desperately to find her and talk to her about her transfer request, he couldn't believe what she said. He'd spent the last few hours fretting about loosing Nina, his child. Having them gone from his life, much as Teri and the child she carried. "What?"
"Tear it up, destroy it, I don't care, burn it..." And he kissed her, holding her jaw like delicate china in his hands as he pressed his lips to hers, pulling away as fast as he'd kissed her, leaving her stunned.
It was her turn. "What?"
She seemed disorientated, but she wasn't confused, or pushing him away. Jack wanted her to know he needed her in his life; it may have been only possible since Teri was gone, but he had to hold her. He kissed her again, more intentionally, this time wrapping his arm around her waist, lifting her to a height closer to his own spurring her back against the kitchen wall. Nina used the wall as leverage to fix herself to him, and she started with the buttons on his shirt, removing the brown material from his skin.
Jack let her slip his shirt from his shoulders, and used his elbows to brace himself against the wall. The bulge of their child, whilst nearly noticeable under her clothing, was always present in his mind and he was afraid to hurt her. He continued kissing her, her mouth, her neck, her collarbone, and as the shirt began to interfere with his progress, he gripped the lapels of her blouse and tore the shirt, letting the buttons pop and scatter, leaving him free to devour the revealed skin.
-24-
"What time do you start tomorrow?" Nina asked in the darkness, softly rubbing Jack's arm, the little blonde hairs there had provided her with fascination for the last two or so minutes, and coupled with tracing the cracks on the ceiling, she was content to lie here for eternity. She wondered for her sanity.
"Kim's driving test is nine - something, I posted out until ten thirty." He told her, not looking up from the pillow, his head was buried in the soft material, and it muffled his words.
Nina wondered if she was keeping him up, if he was desperate to get to sleep, but she continued anyway. "I've got an appointment with my ob-gyn tomorrow."
Jack rolled onto his side and slid closer to her, he left his arm across her chest because he enjoyed Nina rubbing it, as much as she seemed soothed by the action, and it was just above the bump of his child. "A check-up? You want me to come?" he asked, settling his sleepy head into the space where the pillow bowed above her shoulder.
"It's an amniocentesis." Nina told him, "They're going to take some of the fluid around the baby and test it for drug levels." The truth was she was terrified about this, if the results came back high, that her body hadn't been shielding the baby from the effects of the drugs, then it was quite likely that she would need someone there, but tomorrow was the procedure, not the test results, and the procedure didn't really scare her.
Jack awoke a little, and using his second hand, which had been dangling idol above his head, he brushed away a few stray hairs. "What time is it?" He asked her, having decided to attend.
"Ten." She told him, watching as his fingers moved and brushed at the hair on either of her forehead. Her words were stifled by a yawn. Having yawned and replenished her body's supply of oxygen, she reopened her eyes, just as Jack's finger swooped in and scratched the tip of her nose.
"Are you driving there?" He asked, "Because if Kim passes, and I doubt there's a chance she'll fail, then I can have her drop me off, and she can go see her friends."
Nina stretched out the kinks in her neck, tilting it first towards Jack, and then towards the edge of the bed. Some how, she was unsure whether he led her, or she moved of her own accord, but she ended up on her side, resting her head comfortably on his arm. "You need some sleep." He whispered to her as she buried herself against his chest.
His arm slipped happily around her waist, and he placed a kiss in the nest of hair at the nape of her neck. "Goodnight." He whispered contentedly. "I'll be up at half-six, seven? Do you want me to wake you?"
Nina considered it for so long, he wondered if she'd fallen asleep. "Yeah, wake me before you go, but it's probably not a good idea to let Kim know I'm here." She proposed, stretching her legs out under the covers like a cat.
Jack and Kim had reburied Teri only a week or so ago, any healing that his daughter had done up to that point had been completely undone. She had been told that Nina hadn't killed her mother, but it would probably be a while before it was advisable to re-introduce them. Nina hoped she'd be ready by the time she gave birth, because it was looking like she would need Jack to help if anything was wrong with the baby. "I guess I'd better collect your clothes from the corridor." He suggested, pulling the covers back and leaving the room before she could protest at the cold.
He returned quickly, presenting her with her shirt. She sat up a little to look at it. "It has no buttons." Jack laughed as he slid, once again, under the covers and pressed himself against the warm body there.
She glanced over at him and laughed. "You tore all the buttons off?" She queried, incredulous.
Jack examined the material more carefully, looking for his saving grace. "No, see he's still hanging on." He contradicted, referring to a tiny black button towards the bottom of the blouse, as he touched a finger to it, it fell off, rolling into the folds of the bed covers, never to be seen again.
Nina laughed at this, leaning into Jack as her body shook with the laughter. Jack held her vibrating form, smiling into her hair, as the laughter subsided. "I guess I'll have to wear one of yours tomorrow. Maybe they'll fit better this time."
Jack smiled into her hair, Nina was still laughing at her shirt. "Take your pick." He offered, gesturing to the wardrobe with his free hand. His smile broadened as her laughter died to no more than a few quiet, fit like movements, and he leant backwards, pulling her down with him, until they were resting quietly on the bed, ready to sleep.
-24-
"I'm going to drop it!" called Kim, attempting to hurry Nina as she jogged towards Kim in the corridor. The box was full of research notes for the paper Nina was currently working on, and, as Kim had yelled to her earlier, was 'heavy as hell'.
Nina finally reached Kim in time to slow the box's descent the floor, allowing Kim a few moments to recuperate before they picked it up again and found it a more permanent resting place. "What do you say we just make this room the study?" Nina asked, waiting whilst Kim sucked in huge gulps of air.
Kim smiled at her. They were sitting on the floor of the largest room in the house, predestined to be the sitting area, kitchen, and dining area. It was absolutely massive, twenty-five, thirty feet in each direction, with two corridors and rooms leading off to one side of it. The corridors actually looped round and joined one another, but Kim still wasn't sure she wouldn't get lost in the house. The one room she was certain she knew was this one, as the front door opened into it, and she wasn't about to give it up. She continued the joke anyway, having promised her father to try and get along with Nina, who would soon be her evil step-mother, or at the very least, the mother of her step-sibling. "I think you'd need all of this space for your books!"
In Nina's previous apartments had been lined with bookcases, but that was nothing compared to her walls during her post-graduate years, when she had forfeited a living room for a study, living without a television but with several thousand books. "You're probably right." She joked back, gauging Kim's breathing pace. "Let's give this another shot."
Both of them gripped the underside of the container and lifted it, trying to put as much of the weight over their knees, but finding it just as hard as any alternative route. "Oh god!" Nina exclaimed, realising how heavy the box truly was, and trying to keep it away from both her stomach and feet, afraid of the very real possibility of dropping it.
"I _know_!" Kim pointed out, as they made it around the corner and headed to the study door, which they'd had the presence of mind to prop open earlier.
"Well, I should stop writing these things." Nina commented, praying that this was the last time she moved, and would never, ever be stupid enough to tell the delivery men to just 'leave it all in here' Kim repeated her earlier comment, which provided them with a little amusement, until they'd made it far enough into the room so that they wouldn't trip over it. The descent the box had to the floor was startlingly similar to a fall, but they were both too exhausted to care. Kim began to massage her arm.
Nina rounded the box and took Kim's sore arm from her, checking for any scrapes or potential bruises. "It'll be fine," she told Jack's daughter, once she was satisfied that the skin wasn't broken.
"Can't it be broken?" She whined. Nina shook her head and pushed her towards the door so they could get back to work. "Can't it just be split in half and all bloody so I can stop?" Nina laughed at her, and they made their way down the corridor, Nina having to guide Kim with a hand on her back lest she collapse on the sofa.
Jack was stood in the sunlight streaming from the door, looking around at his grand room, boxes where stacked higher than him, and his furniture was pushed to one corner of the room, making room for the boxes, the majority of which were labeled 'Kim's clothes' and 'Nina's books' Nina and Kim rounded the corner, laughing, as Kim made jokes and Nina forced her to work.
"Hey." He greeted them, taking a step down from the stairs and taking off his sunglasses. He placed them on the counter as he opened and arm to each of them, placing a kiss on their heads in turn, starting with Nina. "What happened the staircase?" He joked. At some point, the movers had started walking up the stairs to deposit their boxes, making a pile nearly the height of the room.
"It's in here somewhere." Kim grumbled. Exhaustively resting her head against her father's shoulder. He watched her forehead and nose for a minute, she let out a huge sigh, and then muttered, almost inaudibly. "I think I'm going to die in here, get found by search dogs."
Jack and Nina shared a smile, and he let Nina go to hug his daughter, rubbing her aching limbs. "Well, I'm back now, so maybe you can carry a few of the medium weight boxes." He let her go and tossed his car keys down with his shades, pushing his shirt sleeves up the extra inch and moving to a particularly offensive pile of boxes.
"What did Tony want?" Nina tried to ask as casually as possible; Jack had received a call a few hours ago, from Tony, asking him to come into CTU for a little while. Jack had been nearly an hour, and, ever the workaholic, Nina was intensely curious.
Jack was going to have fun not telling her, he didn't doubt she'd be valuable helping him, but he knew it wasn't on her exact case load, and wanted her to have as little to think about as possible. "It was about the PFT's tax returns." Jack supplied.
"You still haven't briefed me on that." Nina pointed out, following him back to their study.
Jack smiled as he set the box down on the table. "That's because you're not going to work on it." He opened the lid of the box and glanced at it's contents, books, huge thick volumes of psychology text, classical novels, a few political manifestos and published papers of Nina's and her colleagues', professors' and friends', he glanced up at the bookcases that the movers had thankfully put in the right place. He doubted there was enough room.
Nina made her way over, "Jack," she began.
"You know, Nina," he began, as he fished out a handful of books. "You've really got this whole sleeping with the boss thing wrong, you're supposed to get out of work." He stressed the 'out' and placed three books in her left hand. She smiled at him, and shook her head, and he reached his arms around her waist to pull her in for a kiss. "Try and empty that box." He suggested and made his way out of the room.
-24-
Kim looked up from her move to glance at her father; his eyes didn't shift from the board, as he considered his next move, which gave her a rare opportunity to glance over at Nina. She was seated on the floor in front of the coffee table, her laptop placed on its low surface, she was reading through an earlier draft of the paper she was writing, rewriting it with the edifications she'd added a few days ago, and had been terrified she'd lost in the move. After a few seconds she took the biro out of her mouth, and began typing once again on the keyboard. "She's really playing solitaire." Kim whispered across the table.
"I'm sorry, what?" Her dad hadn't been paying attention, and asked her to repeat her statement. She used the same hushed tone, although she was sure that this time, Nina was more aware of her voice. Jack joined in with her line of thought, smiling. "The books are just for show. She's just about to beat the computer."
Nina looked up when she realised she was the topic of conversation. "Huh?" She glanced over at them, squinting, unsure of the nature of their perusal, until she eventually dissolved into a smile, realising they were in good moods. Jack turned quickly back to the chessboard, making his move before he stood and walked to the couch.
Nina shut down her files on approach, and was telling the computer to turn off when he settled down onto the couch. "Definitely, she even shut down the computer when I got somewhere I could see." Kim leant her arms around the back of the chair and turned to laugh with her dad. She paused an extra second to fill the bewildered Nina in on their conversation.
"We theorised you were playing solitaire."
Jack leaned down and wrapped his arms around her shoulders as she realised the joke, arriving just in time to receive both a kiss and a light swat on the arm. They enjoyed the easy camaraderie for a moment before Nina glanced down at her wristwatch, which rested beside her computer on the table. It was very late, and they were all exhausted, but the opportunity to do some living in their house had been too much to pass up. "I'm heading off to bed. You should come up too, if you're going into CTU tomorrow." She suggested to Jack, bending her knees under the table and giving him time to move before she stood up in his face.
He moved back and took her offered hand when she stood, easily, despite the late stage of pregnancy. They made their way to the base of the staircase ready to make their way to bed. "Don't stay up too late, sweetheart." Jack warned his daughter. She nodded from her seat, and then glanced over at them as they took a step up the stairs.
She hated to think of her dad having sex, but, as Nina had made every effort to be a friend rather than any form of authority figure, she couldn't resist making a joke. "You going to break in the new bed then?"
Nina laughed a short burst with her, and then refuted her suggestion. "I'm too exhausted, we've done too much physical exercise for today." She referred to the lot of them, and suddenly Kim began to feel terribly exhausted, yawning as she noticed a coffee cup on the table.
"I'll wash your mug up." She offered, and rose from her chair to collect the cup. Nina thanked her, and they continued up the stairs. Teri took the mug to the sink and poured in some washing up liquid, giving the cup a quick swill, Nina had already drained any drops of liquid, and placed it, clean, upturned on the dryer.
The last week had seemed terribly domestic, hugely in contrast with the months before. She desperately missed her mother, but after a few months, seeing the decline in her father's concentration, her sense of loss had faded into a need to make him better. Whilst she would always remember similar moments with her mother, she had to admit how relieved she was he had Nina, and didn't have to worry about him any more.
At least with Nina, she could be sure that in fifteen years, her stepsibling's parents wouldn't split because they couldn't talk about her father's work. She turned off the light in the kitchen and made her way over to the staircase herself. She buried her mother twice now, and she was sure that missing her profusely wasn't going to bring her back. She also knew that Nina hadn't fired the bullet that killed her, rather, shot the bullet that had eventually enabled them to find her mother's real body, so instead of allowing her to mourn over the grave of a complete stranger, she now had a grave that held something important. The excitement of having a new baby brother or sister also helped allay any qualms she had about her father's relationship to Nina as well.
"So are we really not going to break in the new bed?" Her fathers voice resounded down the corridor as she searched for the light switch. The corridor at the top of the stairs seemed to be amplifying the sound.
"I'm not that tired, Jack, I am eating for two, and one of us is very small." Nina answered him, as Kim found the switch and turned it off, leaving her in the light from the floor above. Kim paused on the stairs a minute, waiting for them to enter their bedroom. She heard a door slam and sprinted up the steps to her lovely new room. She hoped the walls muffled the sound, at least as much as the corridor amplified it.
-24-
Je suis fini! Sorry, guys I know it's all cutsie at the end (what is it with me and long fics!) but after I got the ending spoilt, I had to write an ending that would allow her to be good, that way, I could watch Nina's scenes without wanting to throw cushions at the TV.
On to my Jack-whumping fic, which will, with any luck, not be as long as 'Nobel Business'!! And maybe will have a less domestic ending.
-Aria
He didn't know what to do. Nina had only been working back at CTU for three weeks and she'd put in for a transfer request, the piece of paper he'd held in his hands at the office until it had come close to tearing. Nina had conveniently left for the evening when he'd returned to his office, and now he couldn't get a hold of her. She wasn't answering her cell or home phone, and when he'd driven past two hours ago, and then twenty minutes ago, she hadn't been in. As a last resort he'd driven past Tony's apartment, not really sure what to do if he discovered her there, and found his driveway empty only to discover him at CTU, busy working.
It was nearly two am, and if he was going to take Kim out before her driving test the next morning, he was going to need to turn in soon. He stood in the corridor for a moment, watching his keys on the table by the door as though they were about to move, to run and hide for him, much as he presumed Nina had done.
There was a knock at the door, whoever it was avoiding the doorbell, and he gripped the handle and pulled the door open with so much force it created a bit of a vacuum in its wake. Nina was standing on his doorstep, clutching a small bag he rarely saw her with over his shoulder. "I need a favour." She asked, walking past him and into his living room, ignoring his mood, which he projected with every subtle alteration in his body language.
"You need a favour? Isn't approving a transfer favour enough?" He asked her, keeping his voice low to avoid waking Kim.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." She told him, she watched him for a second, and then deciding, having judged his mood, and she spoke quickly. "Tear it up."
Having spent the last six or seven hours chasing her, trying desperately to find her and talk to her about her transfer request, he couldn't believe what she said. He'd spent the last few hours fretting about loosing Nina, his child. Having them gone from his life, much as Teri and the child she carried. "What?"
"Tear it up, destroy it, I don't care, burn it..." And he kissed her, holding her jaw like delicate china in his hands as he pressed his lips to hers, pulling away as fast as he'd kissed her, leaving her stunned.
It was her turn. "What?"
She seemed disorientated, but she wasn't confused, or pushing him away. Jack wanted her to know he needed her in his life; it may have been only possible since Teri was gone, but he had to hold her. He kissed her again, more intentionally, this time wrapping his arm around her waist, lifting her to a height closer to his own spurring her back against the kitchen wall. Nina used the wall as leverage to fix herself to him, and she started with the buttons on his shirt, removing the brown material from his skin.
Jack let her slip his shirt from his shoulders, and used his elbows to brace himself against the wall. The bulge of their child, whilst nearly noticeable under her clothing, was always present in his mind and he was afraid to hurt her. He continued kissing her, her mouth, her neck, her collarbone, and as the shirt began to interfere with his progress, he gripped the lapels of her blouse and tore the shirt, letting the buttons pop and scatter, leaving him free to devour the revealed skin.
-24-
"What time do you start tomorrow?" Nina asked in the darkness, softly rubbing Jack's arm, the little blonde hairs there had provided her with fascination for the last two or so minutes, and coupled with tracing the cracks on the ceiling, she was content to lie here for eternity. She wondered for her sanity.
"Kim's driving test is nine - something, I posted out until ten thirty." He told her, not looking up from the pillow, his head was buried in the soft material, and it muffled his words.
Nina wondered if she was keeping him up, if he was desperate to get to sleep, but she continued anyway. "I've got an appointment with my ob-gyn tomorrow."
Jack rolled onto his side and slid closer to her, he left his arm across her chest because he enjoyed Nina rubbing it, as much as she seemed soothed by the action, and it was just above the bump of his child. "A check-up? You want me to come?" he asked, settling his sleepy head into the space where the pillow bowed above her shoulder.
"It's an amniocentesis." Nina told him, "They're going to take some of the fluid around the baby and test it for drug levels." The truth was she was terrified about this, if the results came back high, that her body hadn't been shielding the baby from the effects of the drugs, then it was quite likely that she would need someone there, but tomorrow was the procedure, not the test results, and the procedure didn't really scare her.
Jack awoke a little, and using his second hand, which had been dangling idol above his head, he brushed away a few stray hairs. "What time is it?" He asked her, having decided to attend.
"Ten." She told him, watching as his fingers moved and brushed at the hair on either of her forehead. Her words were stifled by a yawn. Having yawned and replenished her body's supply of oxygen, she reopened her eyes, just as Jack's finger swooped in and scratched the tip of her nose.
"Are you driving there?" He asked, "Because if Kim passes, and I doubt there's a chance she'll fail, then I can have her drop me off, and she can go see her friends."
Nina stretched out the kinks in her neck, tilting it first towards Jack, and then towards the edge of the bed. Some how, she was unsure whether he led her, or she moved of her own accord, but she ended up on her side, resting her head comfortably on his arm. "You need some sleep." He whispered to her as she buried herself against his chest.
His arm slipped happily around her waist, and he placed a kiss in the nest of hair at the nape of her neck. "Goodnight." He whispered contentedly. "I'll be up at half-six, seven? Do you want me to wake you?"
Nina considered it for so long, he wondered if she'd fallen asleep. "Yeah, wake me before you go, but it's probably not a good idea to let Kim know I'm here." She proposed, stretching her legs out under the covers like a cat.
Jack and Kim had reburied Teri only a week or so ago, any healing that his daughter had done up to that point had been completely undone. She had been told that Nina hadn't killed her mother, but it would probably be a while before it was advisable to re-introduce them. Nina hoped she'd be ready by the time she gave birth, because it was looking like she would need Jack to help if anything was wrong with the baby. "I guess I'd better collect your clothes from the corridor." He suggested, pulling the covers back and leaving the room before she could protest at the cold.
He returned quickly, presenting her with her shirt. She sat up a little to look at it. "It has no buttons." Jack laughed as he slid, once again, under the covers and pressed himself against the warm body there.
She glanced over at him and laughed. "You tore all the buttons off?" She queried, incredulous.
Jack examined the material more carefully, looking for his saving grace. "No, see he's still hanging on." He contradicted, referring to a tiny black button towards the bottom of the blouse, as he touched a finger to it, it fell off, rolling into the folds of the bed covers, never to be seen again.
Nina laughed at this, leaning into Jack as her body shook with the laughter. Jack held her vibrating form, smiling into her hair, as the laughter subsided. "I guess I'll have to wear one of yours tomorrow. Maybe they'll fit better this time."
Jack smiled into her hair, Nina was still laughing at her shirt. "Take your pick." He offered, gesturing to the wardrobe with his free hand. His smile broadened as her laughter died to no more than a few quiet, fit like movements, and he leant backwards, pulling her down with him, until they were resting quietly on the bed, ready to sleep.
-24-
"I'm going to drop it!" called Kim, attempting to hurry Nina as she jogged towards Kim in the corridor. The box was full of research notes for the paper Nina was currently working on, and, as Kim had yelled to her earlier, was 'heavy as hell'.
Nina finally reached Kim in time to slow the box's descent the floor, allowing Kim a few moments to recuperate before they picked it up again and found it a more permanent resting place. "What do you say we just make this room the study?" Nina asked, waiting whilst Kim sucked in huge gulps of air.
Kim smiled at her. They were sitting on the floor of the largest room in the house, predestined to be the sitting area, kitchen, and dining area. It was absolutely massive, twenty-five, thirty feet in each direction, with two corridors and rooms leading off to one side of it. The corridors actually looped round and joined one another, but Kim still wasn't sure she wouldn't get lost in the house. The one room she was certain she knew was this one, as the front door opened into it, and she wasn't about to give it up. She continued the joke anyway, having promised her father to try and get along with Nina, who would soon be her evil step-mother, or at the very least, the mother of her step-sibling. "I think you'd need all of this space for your books!"
In Nina's previous apartments had been lined with bookcases, but that was nothing compared to her walls during her post-graduate years, when she had forfeited a living room for a study, living without a television but with several thousand books. "You're probably right." She joked back, gauging Kim's breathing pace. "Let's give this another shot."
Both of them gripped the underside of the container and lifted it, trying to put as much of the weight over their knees, but finding it just as hard as any alternative route. "Oh god!" Nina exclaimed, realising how heavy the box truly was, and trying to keep it away from both her stomach and feet, afraid of the very real possibility of dropping it.
"I _know_!" Kim pointed out, as they made it around the corner and headed to the study door, which they'd had the presence of mind to prop open earlier.
"Well, I should stop writing these things." Nina commented, praying that this was the last time she moved, and would never, ever be stupid enough to tell the delivery men to just 'leave it all in here' Kim repeated her earlier comment, which provided them with a little amusement, until they'd made it far enough into the room so that they wouldn't trip over it. The descent the box had to the floor was startlingly similar to a fall, but they were both too exhausted to care. Kim began to massage her arm.
Nina rounded the box and took Kim's sore arm from her, checking for any scrapes or potential bruises. "It'll be fine," she told Jack's daughter, once she was satisfied that the skin wasn't broken.
"Can't it be broken?" She whined. Nina shook her head and pushed her towards the door so they could get back to work. "Can't it just be split in half and all bloody so I can stop?" Nina laughed at her, and they made their way down the corridor, Nina having to guide Kim with a hand on her back lest she collapse on the sofa.
Jack was stood in the sunlight streaming from the door, looking around at his grand room, boxes where stacked higher than him, and his furniture was pushed to one corner of the room, making room for the boxes, the majority of which were labeled 'Kim's clothes' and 'Nina's books' Nina and Kim rounded the corner, laughing, as Kim made jokes and Nina forced her to work.
"Hey." He greeted them, taking a step down from the stairs and taking off his sunglasses. He placed them on the counter as he opened and arm to each of them, placing a kiss on their heads in turn, starting with Nina. "What happened the staircase?" He joked. At some point, the movers had started walking up the stairs to deposit their boxes, making a pile nearly the height of the room.
"It's in here somewhere." Kim grumbled. Exhaustively resting her head against her father's shoulder. He watched her forehead and nose for a minute, she let out a huge sigh, and then muttered, almost inaudibly. "I think I'm going to die in here, get found by search dogs."
Jack and Nina shared a smile, and he let Nina go to hug his daughter, rubbing her aching limbs. "Well, I'm back now, so maybe you can carry a few of the medium weight boxes." He let her go and tossed his car keys down with his shades, pushing his shirt sleeves up the extra inch and moving to a particularly offensive pile of boxes.
"What did Tony want?" Nina tried to ask as casually as possible; Jack had received a call a few hours ago, from Tony, asking him to come into CTU for a little while. Jack had been nearly an hour, and, ever the workaholic, Nina was intensely curious.
Jack was going to have fun not telling her, he didn't doubt she'd be valuable helping him, but he knew it wasn't on her exact case load, and wanted her to have as little to think about as possible. "It was about the PFT's tax returns." Jack supplied.
"You still haven't briefed me on that." Nina pointed out, following him back to their study.
Jack smiled as he set the box down on the table. "That's because you're not going to work on it." He opened the lid of the box and glanced at it's contents, books, huge thick volumes of psychology text, classical novels, a few political manifestos and published papers of Nina's and her colleagues', professors' and friends', he glanced up at the bookcases that the movers had thankfully put in the right place. He doubted there was enough room.
Nina made her way over, "Jack," she began.
"You know, Nina," he began, as he fished out a handful of books. "You've really got this whole sleeping with the boss thing wrong, you're supposed to get out of work." He stressed the 'out' and placed three books in her left hand. She smiled at him, and shook her head, and he reached his arms around her waist to pull her in for a kiss. "Try and empty that box." He suggested and made his way out of the room.
-24-
Kim looked up from her move to glance at her father; his eyes didn't shift from the board, as he considered his next move, which gave her a rare opportunity to glance over at Nina. She was seated on the floor in front of the coffee table, her laptop placed on its low surface, she was reading through an earlier draft of the paper she was writing, rewriting it with the edifications she'd added a few days ago, and had been terrified she'd lost in the move. After a few seconds she took the biro out of her mouth, and began typing once again on the keyboard. "She's really playing solitaire." Kim whispered across the table.
"I'm sorry, what?" Her dad hadn't been paying attention, and asked her to repeat her statement. She used the same hushed tone, although she was sure that this time, Nina was more aware of her voice. Jack joined in with her line of thought, smiling. "The books are just for show. She's just about to beat the computer."
Nina looked up when she realised she was the topic of conversation. "Huh?" She glanced over at them, squinting, unsure of the nature of their perusal, until she eventually dissolved into a smile, realising they were in good moods. Jack turned quickly back to the chessboard, making his move before he stood and walked to the couch.
Nina shut down her files on approach, and was telling the computer to turn off when he settled down onto the couch. "Definitely, she even shut down the computer when I got somewhere I could see." Kim leant her arms around the back of the chair and turned to laugh with her dad. She paused an extra second to fill the bewildered Nina in on their conversation.
"We theorised you were playing solitaire."
Jack leaned down and wrapped his arms around her shoulders as she realised the joke, arriving just in time to receive both a kiss and a light swat on the arm. They enjoyed the easy camaraderie for a moment before Nina glanced down at her wristwatch, which rested beside her computer on the table. It was very late, and they were all exhausted, but the opportunity to do some living in their house had been too much to pass up. "I'm heading off to bed. You should come up too, if you're going into CTU tomorrow." She suggested to Jack, bending her knees under the table and giving him time to move before she stood up in his face.
He moved back and took her offered hand when she stood, easily, despite the late stage of pregnancy. They made their way to the base of the staircase ready to make their way to bed. "Don't stay up too late, sweetheart." Jack warned his daughter. She nodded from her seat, and then glanced over at them as they took a step up the stairs.
She hated to think of her dad having sex, but, as Nina had made every effort to be a friend rather than any form of authority figure, she couldn't resist making a joke. "You going to break in the new bed then?"
Nina laughed a short burst with her, and then refuted her suggestion. "I'm too exhausted, we've done too much physical exercise for today." She referred to the lot of them, and suddenly Kim began to feel terribly exhausted, yawning as she noticed a coffee cup on the table.
"I'll wash your mug up." She offered, and rose from her chair to collect the cup. Nina thanked her, and they continued up the stairs. Teri took the mug to the sink and poured in some washing up liquid, giving the cup a quick swill, Nina had already drained any drops of liquid, and placed it, clean, upturned on the dryer.
The last week had seemed terribly domestic, hugely in contrast with the months before. She desperately missed her mother, but after a few months, seeing the decline in her father's concentration, her sense of loss had faded into a need to make him better. Whilst she would always remember similar moments with her mother, she had to admit how relieved she was he had Nina, and didn't have to worry about him any more.
At least with Nina, she could be sure that in fifteen years, her stepsibling's parents wouldn't split because they couldn't talk about her father's work. She turned off the light in the kitchen and made her way over to the staircase herself. She buried her mother twice now, and she was sure that missing her profusely wasn't going to bring her back. She also knew that Nina hadn't fired the bullet that killed her, rather, shot the bullet that had eventually enabled them to find her mother's real body, so instead of allowing her to mourn over the grave of a complete stranger, she now had a grave that held something important. The excitement of having a new baby brother or sister also helped allay any qualms she had about her father's relationship to Nina as well.
"So are we really not going to break in the new bed?" Her fathers voice resounded down the corridor as she searched for the light switch. The corridor at the top of the stairs seemed to be amplifying the sound.
"I'm not that tired, Jack, I am eating for two, and one of us is very small." Nina answered him, as Kim found the switch and turned it off, leaving her in the light from the floor above. Kim paused on the stairs a minute, waiting for them to enter their bedroom. She heard a door slam and sprinted up the steps to her lovely new room. She hoped the walls muffled the sound, at least as much as the corridor amplified it.
-24-
Je suis fini! Sorry, guys I know it's all cutsie at the end (what is it with me and long fics!) but after I got the ending spoilt, I had to write an ending that would allow her to be good, that way, I could watch Nina's scenes without wanting to throw cushions at the TV.
On to my Jack-whumping fic, which will, with any luck, not be as long as 'Nobel Business'!! And maybe will have a less domestic ending.
-Aria