Part V
With a last painful glow in his eyes he lowered his arm until the gun was pointing at the floor. Watching her step out of the house, crossing the porch and approaching the water, his facial expression relaxed and eventually turned into a sad smile. The irony was mocking and far too evident. So many times he had fought the urge to kill her, struggled hard to repress the hunger to let her pay for everything she had done to him. Every time it had gotten harder and every time it had killed another little part of him. And now, finally being relieved of any restrictions, all the trumps in his hands, he found himself struggling for the exact opposite. He bent over and broke into a silent, despaired laughter. It hadn't been self-restraint that had made his hand shake, his finger hadn't refused to bend around the trigger because he had violently forced himself to keep it stiff. On the contrary. He had tried to bend that finger so hard, he had pleaded with himself so much, struggled to convince his confused and exhausted mind that this was what he really wanted - to pull the trigger and put an end to it. But he couldn't. After all these years he suddenly found himself incapable of killing her. There was just not enough hate and rage left in him to murder her.
Tears rolled down his cheeks and his body erupted under the laughter that he couldn't stop and he tumbled back onto the stool, resting his head between his hands.
The minutes passed by and he didn't know how long he had been sitting there and just stared on the ground, allowing himself to finally let go of everything. When his tears had dried and the laughter ebbed away, he felt his pulse had quickened and his forehead was bathed in cold sweat. He got up and toddled out of the door and onto the porch. Holstering his gun he took another step before he fell onto his knees and bent over, violently throwing up. Heavy contractions shook him as he relieved himself into the sand.
When his stomach finally realized it was empty he bent back, avidly breathing in the fresh air breezing over him from the ocean. He opened his eyes and squinted against the sun when he caught a glimpse of her silhouette. She was standing at the demarcation line to where the sand was still wet from an earlier flow, her arms wrapped around her shoulders, the wind playing with her hair. Wiping his mouth he got up on his feet and started walking towards her.
She heard him coming and couldn't help but tense. She let go of her shoulders and fiddled with her hands for a moment before she finally folded her arms, her gaze resting on the water. He emerged in the outmost periphery of her field of vision, moving up until he was on a level with her, still a gap of at least three meters between them though. She took a quick side glance at him, finding that he was observing the surf just like she had.
"I hated you so much," he said, his voice soft with weakness but strong enough to be heard against the wind and the ocean. "So strongly and urgently you will never even get close to comprehending just how much."
She turned her head slightly and raised her eyes at him, but he wasn't moving, still staring out over the water.
"I still hate you and a part of me always will. I will never forgive you for what you did." He paused to emphasize his words. "You took everything away from me that... ." He swallowed and it took him a moment before he could go on. "But killing you now won't bring Teri back. And it won't undo these past seven years just like it won't bring back anything I lost. I don't know why but it won't even make me feel any better." He paused again and sighed, observing the horizon. "You were right. It's too late."
She turned her head back and stared on the ground in front of her. Silence fell between them as she went back and forth in her mind, finally making a decision.
"I didn't kill you at CTU because I just couldn't, Jack." She stretched her shoulders and lifted her head as she continued, staring at the same horizon. "I would have done it that day you found out about me and I would have done it after Visalia. I didn't want to but what choice did I have. It was you or me and I wanted to stay alive. Since the day you found out I turned on you every decision I made regarding you was based on that. I know you can't accept that, but I won't be sorry for wanting to live. Not for that." Everything but that.
He still didn't move or showed any reaction and she took that as an encouragement. She still doubted he believed a single word of what she said, but at least she would have tried to give him what he seemed to have longed for so much. The truth. Finally. And maybe he would be able to recognize it as just that. Nothing more, nothing less.
"You said I don't believe in anything? You were right, I don't. Not anymore. I know I did once but that seems so far away - I can't even see why or exactly when it stopped. I just realized that we weren't better than most of the people we were fighting. We are doing the same things we are accusing them of, we just name them differently." She hesitated for a moment, wondering if he was even listening but not daring to look at him. "In the end we are all just doing what is best for us, what is in our interests. That's human nature. We will do whatever we have to and justify it in whatever way we can."
Eventually she glanced at him. "I know you will never understand that, Jack. You have your morals and your beliefs. Sometimes I envy you for that. Everything would have been different if I could just believe that...that there is a right cause. But I don't."
"No," Jack finally broke his silence. "The only thing you believe in is yourself."
"Well, ultimately that's the only thing I can hold on to. Face it, Jack, no matter how close you are with another person, you are still on your own. You should know. It doesn't matter how much you love someone or how much they love you back - there are certain things that can never be shared. In the end we are all alone, isolated in ourselves."
"Even if I believed you for one second," Jack replied, his anger still void of anger or even grief. "How does that justify that you killed my wife. Or anything you did."
"It doesn't," Nina stated. "I'm not justifying. I couldn't. But you wanted to know why and that's it. I'm not proud of it and a part of me is even appalled by it."
She was surprised herself by all these revelations, but it was as if once she had started the words just came so easily. As if they had been held back and locked away for far too long.
Jack was still not looking at her. He couldn't. Looking at her would inevitably resume the old pattern of mind-reading and self-protection, of getting in control or taking it over. He wasn't really comfortable with it, but for the moment he was actually convinced that she was honest with him.
"What about us?" he asked reluctantly and she sighed before answering.
"You've always been my weak spot, Jack. That's what made killing you so hard." She hesitated, not sure if he was ready for what was to come. But she figured it didn't really make a difference. "That's what made killing Teri so hard."
She waited for a reaction but there was none, at least not visible. "If Drazen would have contacted me a half year earlier, if the whole operation would have been a few months earlier..." She hesitated again. "It wouldn't have made a difference with us. I always knew you were going back to her. But when you finally told me you would move in again," she shook her head, still astonished by her past inability to bridle her emotions, "I was so jealous, I could have killed her right there without the slightest shadow of a doubt. But that day it was different." She shook her head and her gaze wandered about the sand in front of her. "I knew it would break you, Jack, but I just didn't see an alternative. It was me or her. You would have been able to track me down and my contact would have killed me if he had found out I didn't do everything to cover up any traces leading to him. I didn't have a choice. Not from my perspective."
Jack was surprised that he didn't feel anything at her words. He was trying to sense any of the old fury that had raged inside him for so long, but it was as if his earlier collapse had emptied him of every emotion, had washed out everything and left him with nothing. He wasn't even able to be disgusted by his own indifference.
"For being your weak spot you didn't seem to have a problem setting me up to get killed. After all that was the overall goal that day."
"In the beginning it was just to set you up for the murder of Palmer," she objected weakly. "And later on, there was no return. Besides..." She sighed.
"Besides what?" he urged.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Besides I was hoping they would settle my problem. I always knew that if I would ever make a mistake that would compromise me, it would be somehow connected to you. I should have gotten rid off you myself, but I couldn't. And I didn't. Not then and not later for the one or the other reason and here we are."
She looked at him but he wasn't showing any reaction and she had nothing more to say, so she turned her gaze back at the ocean and they both remained silent for a long time.
"Did you think I was going to kill you today?"
"Yes," she answered without hesitation. "I had no doubt you would. You seemed so calm and...I don't know, in control."
"Yet you challenged me several times. Did you want me to do it?"
"I don't know, Jack," she sighed tiredly. "At first I just wanted you to do it fast. Then I don't know anymore." She tried to come to an answer for herself. "Maybe a part of me. Yes. A part of me just didn't want to go on like that. Look where it got me." She gestured at their surroundings. "I don't even know what I'm doing here."
They fell silent again, watching the last sunbeam slowly fading away. The days weren't that long yet and soon it would be dark.
"I felt bad for leaving you," his voice cut through the silence. "And then I felt bad for ever touching you."
She couldn't help but comment. "I think that was a mutual feeling."
"And in Mexico, I didn't know which one of us I hated more. You for making me do that or me for..."
He hesitated. For playing along, she finished his sentence in her mind.
"...for wanting to feel something," he continued.
He could sense her head flying around and he met her baffled look with complete indifference.
"The smallest part of me wanted to feel something again. After all my life depended on it. And as much as I was trying I knew that you would feel I was lying. If you had been anyone else..." He shook his head. "So I knew it had to be real. That's how far I was willing to go."
She still stared at him in confusion, incapable of making sense of his remark.
"It was gone in a second though and you were right: I didn't feel a thing." He turned away again and let the wind stroke his face, closing his eyes. She examined his profile and he didn't seem angry at all, not even upset. Just as tired as she was herself, his face expression blank.
He opened his eyes to meet hers. "And now I feel nothing. Nothing at all. No hate, no anger, no disgust. Not even grief." He examined his insides one more time and shook his head as he found his statement confirmed. " I feel dead. Empty. I have nothing left to feel. You took that all away from me."
She instantly turned back to the water. She didn't know what to do with this. She had told herself that she could live with causing him all the pain and all the loss. She had never enjoyed it, but it had been inevitable and a necessary price to pay. But now she didn't know what to tell or think anymore. A part of her was just processing the latest information and noting the implications for her prospects of staying alive. After all that was what she had been struggling for all those years. And with his hatred and anger gone, she had a good chance of being safe. But she couldn't sense any relief. Instead something else suddenly seemed to cloud over her. Guilt.
He gave her a side glance and his eyes fell on the scar on her throat where she had slammed the needle into her jugular. Without thinking about it he turned to her, stretched out his hand and ran a finger over the uneven scar tissue. She hadn't seen it coming and jumped in surprise, her arm spinning around in reflex, grabbing his wrist tightly.
"What are you..." she started but didn't finish the sentence. What are you doing, she had meant to ask, but the look in his eyes had silenced her. She shivered. She hadn't seen him giving her that look since...well, all that time ago.
She shook her head in disbelief, still holding his wrist in a tight grip. "Jack." She had to be wrong. But she knew she wasn't. "It's not gonna..."
He brought his other hand to her face and laid a finger on her lips. She fell silent but her eyes pleaded with him, filled with pain and mostly fear.
He softly placed a second finger next to the first one and started traveling her features, stroking to the corner of her mouth and over her cheek, four fingers now, exploring every centimeter of her face. This was the last mystery that was left to solve. If she had been the one taking everything away from him, then maybe she was the only one who could give something back to him as well. Make him feel again, live again.
Still holding on to his other wrist she closed her eyes, shifting her head slightly under his tentative touch. She tried to force up enough strength to withdraw herself, but suddenly she couldn't come up with any convincing argument anymore. His fingers came to rest under her chin and she felt him leaning in, his breath on her skin causing her goose bumps. And when his lips found hers she felt too tired for any reason to not to give in to this to appeal to her.
It was a reserved, careful kiss. Like two fighters skipping around each other in the ring, trying to estimate each others strength. He withdrew himself and she pulled her head back and opened her eyes. He was looking right into them, trying to make out what was going on inside her while at the same time exploring his insides, seeking for anything to reveal his own state of being.
Her mouth still open she breathed heavily and looked at him interrogatively. And for a second that seemed to stretch out into eternity they were just standing there, motionless and turned to stone. Then he suddenly shot forward, freeing his arm from her now weakened grip and grabbing her head with both hands, pulling her close and kissing her hungrily. She staggered back and held on to him to hold her balance, doing nothing to fight him off.