Phone Calls

Chapter 6: Dreams

Jack Bauer is a man who never truly rest. He sleeps with one eye open. If he didn't he'd have been dead long ago. His first instinct upon waking is to reach for the gun on his bedside table. But he pauses waiting to see what the intruder will do, but keeping himself ready to move quickly.

He finds himself shocked into stillness as the intruder speaks, "You're not gonna like, shoot me are you?"

Jack sits up in bed and stares open mouth at the woman in front of him, "Chloe," he finally manages.

She gives him a look that says, 'Well, duh,' and then replies, "Yeah, last time I checked."

Jack shakes his head as if to clear it, but she's still there, "I must be hallucinating," he finally says, but as Chloe comes closer and sits down next to him he realizes she is very solid.

"I don't know why you're so surprised. I thought this was what you wanted. You have been sending me love letters for oh, two months now. Haven't you?"

"Well, yeah," Jack said, clearly still confused, "But Chloe I never told you where I was, or asked you to come, you need to leave; it's not safe to be here."

"Don't be stupid. I'm with you. I'm perfectly safe."

"Chloe, you're not safe, and you cannot stay with me."

Chloe's bright face darkened, "You don't want me here?"

"No, that's not it."

Chloe stood up and paced the small motel room, "Well that's typical, phone calls in the middle of the night, love letters, prisms and now nothing. I knew I was reading too much into them. They made no logical sense, but no I, for once, had to go and listen to my heart and come here and tell you…"

"Tell me what?" Jack said, not standing in front of her and halting her pacing.

Chloe looked up at him, her eyes watery, "Tell you that I think I might be in love with you. I'm not completely sure, I'm not good at this kind of thing, but I memorized all those letters you sent me and," she reached into her pocket and pulled the prism out," I carry this like everywhere, so I think I might be, in love with you."

Jack said nothing for a moment and simply stared at her.

"Jack," she said, "Now would be a really great time for a response."

But Jack could say nothing as month's worth of pent-up emotion burst out of him and he pulled her into his arms. He swallowed her "yip" of shock as he pressed his lips to hers; acting out every dream he'd ever had about her as he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed.

"Jack," she whimpered, causing him to pull back and look at her. She opened her mouth to say his name again but he couldn't hear her over the ringing. Ring! Ring!

Dammit! As Jack shot up in bed he could think of nothing but that word. Not another dream. He didn't know how much longer he could handle them.

His thoughts were cut off as his cell phone rang again.

Reaching over he grabbed it, assuming Tony was calling to check in as he did every week, "Yeah," he answered, long ago he had schooled himself not to answer his own name into the phone.

"Hello, Mr. Bauer," Jack went on immediate alert as he heard the strange voice on the phone, "Did we wake you? It is only, 6am in the part of Mexico you are staying in, correct."

"I'm sorry," Jack began, "You must have the wrong number. No Bauer here."

"Really? Well I am terribly sorry to bother you. Perhaps you could pass a message onto Mr. Bauer for me."

"What do you want?"

"Well I have a friend of Mr. Bauer's here and she wanted to say hello."

Jack heard rustling and then a voice he knew all too well said, "Jack."

No, no, God, no.

"Chloe," Jack said, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. Considering I've been kidnapped by a gang of men with guns."

Jack heard rustling again, "Chloe? Chloe?"

"So, you know Ms. O'Brien as well. Well then you can tell Mr. Bauer that he had 24 hours to return to the United States."

"And then what?"

"And then he will get further instructions. Oh and I'm sure I do not need to remind you that if you call the authorities I will have no choice but to kill Ms. O'Brien, very slowly."

Jack heard nothing else as the man hung up. Immediately he dialed Tony, "Almedia" came the answer a few moments after, "Tony, it's Jack, we have a problem."