Chapter 3
Jack started to believe that Barbara really knew him. He knew she'd only succeeded because of determination, born of need. He realized that Barbara could survive anything when she put her mind to it. He took her assurances to heart, and acknowledged to himself for the first time that when she committed to marriage, to a life with him, for better or for worse, she meant it.
Jack knew that Barbara hadn't had it easy. She had watched her mother struggle throughout her childhood in San Francisco. Her father had died of a heart attack when Barbara was six, and her mother had gone to work as a legal secretary. While they had a nice apartment and there was always enough food, her mother worked very hard for it. When she was in high school Barbara had worked at the public library four days a week, from after school until 10 at night. It had left very little time for school work, but she'd still managed to get straight A's. She had gotten a full scholarship to Stanford, where she worked in the college cafeteria and again excelled in school, but her mother passed away when she was in her second year there. She stayed with her mother's aunt on school vacations after that. Despite her work load, both academic and physical, she graduated with honors.
After her mother's death Barbara realized that she had no remaining ties to California, so she decided to go to law school in a different region. She was awarded a scholarship to Georgetown, where she worked in the college bookstore. Again she graduated at the top of her class. Her next goal was to find a good job.
She had always wanted to go to New York/ She was eager to see what she could do in a courtroom, so she accepted a job as an Assistant District Attorney in New York, one of the most prestigious offices in the country. She started low on the totem pole, as did all new Assistants, doing mostly paper work, but her talents were quickly recognized. She was soon doing trials herself and she quickly moved up the food chain, working her way up to prosecuting homicides a full five years sooner than most Assistants.
She loved her job, but she was again ready to use her talents in new ways. And she was ready to see what she could do in a courtroom with other types of cases.
Her need to live in the busiest city in the world was satisfied, and she moved back to California to join a law firm in Los Angeles. She began handling a much greater variety of cases, not just criminal trials but civil cases as well, not just the government prosecuting alleged perpetrators. She found that she loved it, with cases running the gamut from antitrust, which she found spectacularly boring, to unusual cases which she relished, such as whether a cow was fertile enough for embryo transplantation. Author's note: I really had a case like that! She still did some criminal cases, more than she liked in fact, so she decided it was time to try things on her own.
She'd developed quite a reputation by that time so she was never lacking for work. Her hardest case was her attempt to free Jack from prison, which required that she prove him innocent of the charges. Usually the government has to prove that someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; in Jack's case, because he'd already been convicted and she was trying to get the conviction reversed, she had to prove the opposite: that he hadn't committed murder.
By the time her efforts proved successful Jack had started to deal with his feelings of guilt, not just for Teri's death, but for all of the terrible things in his past. He acknowledged that he'd had to do those things to accomplish his missions both for CTU and the Army, especially Nightfall, and he overcame his heroin addiction He began to believe that he deserved to live, even that he deserved happiness. He admitted his attraction to Barbara when he was released from prison, and they soon started to date. Their mutual attraction turned to love, and their eventual commitment to make their relationship permanent.
Jack knew that her past had made Barbara strong and independent, because for all of her adult life she'd had to stand on her own. But that doesn't make her emotionally independent, he realized with a start. Her strength won't mean that she'll walk out on me; it means she'll be there, no matter what, no matter what troubles we might face. We'll face them together.
After Jack had explained this to her, telling her what he had feared, and how he now knew that he had been wrong, he felt an overwhelming relief. He felt confident saying that he had no compunctions about their marriage; no way did he want to cancel their wedding. He meant every word when he said, "There are no problems, Baby. I want you, I want to be married to you. I want us to be together for the rest of her lives."
As she looked into his blue eyes Barbara saw that this was true. There was no longer any hesitation there, no reluctance. She felt herself relax for the first time since they'd decided to marry.