"Hi I'm here to see Jack Bauer; he was brought her earlier." As she spoke she noticed the stress in her voice, she certainly was worried.
"Mr. Bauer had just been moved to recovery, you will need to take the elevator up to floor L, you will find him their." She said, in a typical enthusiastic monotone voice that all receptionists seemed to have.
Kate followed her instructions and took the lift. She moved over to let a woman in a wheelchair in with her. She held her breath as the lift slowly ascended, she didn't feel conformable in places full of the sick. She got out at the appropriate floor, and walked down the corridor, her heels echoing loudly as they clonked hard against the hard floor. She noticed how quiet it was, and began peering through the wooden entrance frames to the rooms, which held 6 beds, and were full of people who didn't look too good.
After walking the length of the corridor she realised she hadn't seen Jack, or at least, she didn't think she had. She walked by each room again, trying to look for him inconspicuously; hoping the other patients didn't think she was being rude. With no success, she went to find a nurse.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for Jack Bauer, the receptionist told me he was on this ward?"
"Hold on a moment." The nurse said kindly, before going off somewhere. Kate waited patiently, worried that something bad had happened which was why she couldn't find him. A few minutes later the friendly looking nurse returned.
"He is in a private room, its just this way." Kate followed quietly, worried about seeing him now. What if he didn't want to see her, she wondered?
"Here it is." The nurse informed, before going off somewhere else.
Kate stood outside the door a moment, unsure of what she was going to say. Taking a deep breath she opened the door and entered. She closed the door behind her and kept her eyes on the floor, she didn't want to look at him, she was scared to see what was wrong with him.
Slowly she lifted her gaze and looked at him. Her mind registered nothing, she was just happy to see him again, it had been a few weeks since she had made him leave, and she had missed him so much.
She walked over to him, and sat in the brown padded chair next to his bed. She took a moment to look him up and down, and then assess the damage. He was laid on top of the blankets, she noticed, and wondered why this was. She saw he was wearing a pair of white shorts, and one of those strange gown type tops. On his leg, she noticed some thick bandaging, from the top, to just above the knee. She then noticed the bandaging around his entire left arm. She was now worried, and began to wonder just what had happened to him, it was obviously serious.
She pulled her chair up closer to the white bed and, after brushing some of the stray strands of hair away from her face, gently rubbed his arm. She watched his face, and thought he looked almost angelic. No stress their, no pain present. No anger. Those were the three most common things she had been used to seeing on his face, and it made a change to see him like this.
The nurse who had directed her to the room entered, and gave Kate a warming smile.
"Sorry to interrupt, I need to give him some more drugs, it will just take a moment."
"What happened to him?" She asked, almost fearing the answer.
"His entire left arm, and that side of his chest took the best part of an explosion, it seems. We've done the necessary skin graphs and surgery on them, everything has been put into place for now." She said, gently, hoping not to startle the woman.
"What's wrong with his leg, its all bandaged up." She said, noticing a hint if a whine in her voice.
"We had to take tissue from their to reconstruct the damage on his arm, where it was worst."
"Oh." Kate said, trying to wipe the horrible images of what it must look like from her mind.
The nurse extracted some syringes into the i.v. bag leading into his arm, checked a few monitors and then left. Once alone again, Kate continued to rub his arm with one hand, and stroked the side of his face with the other.
"I'm sorry Jack... I'm sorry you have to go through this again." She whispered. "I wish you had told me about Daniel... it would had made things easier for both of us.... I would have known why you couldn't understand why I needed Marie...... you don't need anyone, but.... I need you Jack. I'm sorry I never understood that until now."