Note: The song is "Something in the way" by Nirvana.

Danvers State Mental Institution, outside of Boston

3:45 pm

Jack looked at the frail woman sobbing on the floor in front of him as he stood up slowly and walked the length of the cell back to the door. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the door, looking out the window into the bright sun outside, waiting for Mandy to calm down. His face remained blank, but inside he wondered what exactly was going on in front of him. While she was certainly capable of extreme displays of deception, she also had a very, very strong sense of self preservation. True, he thought, some minor wounds could mean she's probably just trying to convincingly cover her ass, but that stitched wound looks pretty deep. The doctor did mention suicidal ideation…Jack's thoughts trailed off. He knew enough psychology to know that suicidal thoughts and actions indicated a real problem.

The tiny, white cell was uncomfortably warm and Jack went over to the window as Mandy's sobs began to subside. He undid the lock through the bars and opened the window, a cool breeze gently blowing through the cell. Mandy wiped her face with both hands and then sniffled as she ran a hand under her nose before turning her eyes to Jack. Jack looked back at her impassively as he dug through his pockets for a pack of cigarettes.

"I'm sorry…about the…the crying. I feel pretty stupid," Mandy began, laughing self-deprecatingly at the end before trailing off. Jack put a cigarette between his lips and lit it with a beat-up silver Zippo and glanced at Mandy before turning to blow smoke out the window. He looked back and caught her gaze flitting up from the cigarette to his face. Sighing, he withdrew the pack from his pocket and held it out for her to take a cigarette before sliding it back into his breast pocket. He lit her cigarette for her and she drew in a long, shaking drag.

"Thanks…" she managed before exploding into a coughing fit, her slender fingers managing to hold the cigarette steady while she was wracked with coughs.

"Been a while?" Jack asked, an amused smirk spreading across his face. She answered after the coughs subsided.

"Yeah, you could say that," she replied, silence falling heavy between them as they smoked. Mandy stood up shakily and padded barefoot over to stand by Jack, both of them looking out of the window at the grounds below, their smoke wafting out of the window and mingling with the cool, crisp breeze. The wind groaned around the edges of the window and the sound mixed with the rustling of the leaves of the ash trees outside and created something oddly beautiful and calming. They finished their cigarettes and pitched them out the window, sparks flying off as the wind took them. Jack went and sat down on the floor, hands propped up on his knees, his back against one wall of the cell.

Mandy hesitated at the window, looking out at the azure sky. She watched the wind pick up slightly and take hold of the leaves, the blades of grass, and dance with them a quiet, rustling waltz. She wanted her mind to be as clear as the sky and as unburdened as the breeze blowing outside of her window. I want to be out of this fucking hospital. I want to put my life back together, maybe finally be who I'm supposed to. Oh, fuck it, I just want to go outside, she thought to herself.

"I just want to go outside," she said softly, before she could stop herself from vocalizing her thoughts. She had hoped the dangerous, unforgiving man that she knew was in her cell with her didn't hear her. For a moment, she thought that she was in the clear, until he cleared his throat and his voice sounded in her ears.

"I'd like to talk to you first, then afterwards I'm sure I could convince the doctor to let you out on the grounds for a while," he said, his voice tingling the back of her neck. He didn't see, but her eyes brightened considerably at the mention of going outside. She lingered at the window a moment longer before moving until her back was against the wall across from where Jack was sitting. She slid down the wall and crossed her legs as best she could so nothing could be seen up the hospital gown.

Jack watched her slide down the wall. There was something different about her demeanor. He could sense a change from the confident, calculating woman he met years ago to the one who stood before him awkwardly graceful, yet unsure and confused and lost. In all his years as a CTU agent, he did a damn fine job judging people's character based on little information. What Mandy was giving him now was a flood of insight into who she was now. She was not the same person who kidnapped his friend and attempted to assassinate President Palmer. Strictly speaking, yes it was the same person, with the same skills and memories. But it was like a switch had been flipped. All of that, however, didn't mean that he trusted her. He vowed to remain distant and vigilant until he knew more.

"I…don't even really know where to begin. Why were you in Boston? What have you been doing? Who are you now and how is this possible?" Jack forced out, exasperated that the scope of the situation he was in was preventing him from getting concisely to the issue at hand. Mandy's eyes slid down from his to her hands resting in her lap. She began to play with a loose thread at the bottom hem of the gown as she talked.

"When the FBI showed up, I figured it was a matter of time before you guys came. I had a while to decide what I wanted to say, when I was clear enough to think properly. I got it all pretty straight, so I may as well go from that," she said, prefacing any further remarks she was going to make.

"I don't know what's going on with me. Ever since the…since those guys in Boston a month ago, I feel like I just woke up from a coma, except the entire time I was in the coma, I knew what I was doing and feeling and all that. I have all the memories-- Palmer, Tony, Marwan-- but I don't feel the same way I did then. Like I said…I just feel like I've been woken up from a deep sleep, and it's been scaring me. I've been confused, battling who I was and who I feel I am now, trying to reconcile the two. It got to be a little much, as you can see…" and here she gestured at the stitches in her right arm, looking down in mild shame and embarrassment before continuing, "…but I've reached the conclusion that I was that person, that awful, manipulative cunt…but…I'm not her anymore. I don't understand why or how it happened. Like I said, it's…confusing," she trailed off, wishing she could control her mouth a little bit better. Jack seemed to mull over her words for a bit, eyes slowly looking from her, around the room, to the window, and back to her while he processed what she had said.

"I've been witness to the truly heinous shit you're capable of, Mandy, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm at least a little hesitant because of that. But I like to think I'm a decent judge of character, and I'm inclined, for now, to believe you. I'm going to stay up here for a while and run some background checks on you through CTU, which I'm sure you can understand, and I'm also going to ask the doctor to check you out, make sure you're ok to be released," Jack said, maintaining eye contact with the woman sitting across from him. Buchanan was going to kick his ass when Jack told him what sort of thoughts he was formulating, but he was a man who trusted his instincts. Currently, they were telling him to help her. At the very least, get her cleared and released.

"So I get released, and then what? Do I wait tables?" Mandy said sarcastically, after a long pause. Jack's face remained neutral.

"There will be time for that afterwards. And this all banks on me feeling that you're not lying, examining your past, and the doctor signing off, ok?" Jack clarified, hoping she'd understand his reasons for having to take such a careful approach to this. She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully while looking at the floor before turning back to him.

"Ok," she said simply.

Just like that? Jack thought as he stood up and stretched. He glanced at his watch and noticed that it was now 5:15. They'd been talking for almost two hours. He looked around the cell briefly to make sure he didn't drop anything while sitting down and moved over to where Mandy sat, extending his hand to help her up.

"Come on, let's go see the doctor about going outside for a bit," Jack said, smiling slightly as she full on grinned brightly back at him.

10:00 pm

Jack Bauer lay beneath the sheets of his bed, hands behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling of his small bedroom in the only hotel he managed to find out in the rural area. It was one of the hotels with little one-storey houses, rather than a block of rooms, surrounding the office. The thin curtains covering the window were pulled open just enough to allow light to get in from outside.

The streetlight shone through the curtains, casting lines on the floor and lines on his face as he reflected on the day.

After 20 minutes of negotiation with Dr. Swofford and his solemn promise to keep an eye on her the entire time, Mandy was allowed outside of the building after a month of total confinement indoors. She went back to her old cell, to which she would now be allowed to return, and slipped on a dark blue bathrobe over her hospital gown to better cover herself before heading outside with Jack. As they made their way out of the lobby, he noticed that she was still barefoot.

"Do you need shoes or something?" Jack asked uncertainly.

"Nope," she replied quietly, smiling again, "I want to feel the grass." And he nodded once to show he understood, and they continued outside, walking down the front steps and stepping out into the grass in the shade just below one of the many ash trees on the grounds. Mandy stopped for a moment, settling her feet in the grass and closing her eyes. Jack chuckled at her obvious enjoyment of something seemingly so trivial.

"How's it feel?" he questioned with a half smirk.

"Amazing," she said, eyes still closed, her body still, "it's soft and cool. Seems silly, yeah, but you live inside for a month and you grow to crave what you can't get to." Jack grunted something that could have been an agreement or simply an acknowledgement of her statement. He watched as the breeze picked up and Mandy started to sway with the wind, her blank face finally giving way to a tiny smile. Tendrils of her black hair moved in the breeze and Jack felt a small, genuine smile spread across his own face. It wasn't unwelcome or insincere, but it was unexplainable and when she opened her eyes, he hid it the best he could, hoping she didn't notice him enjoying her enjoying her new freedom. She looked at him in such a way, such a secret, amused way, that told him that he hadn't been fast enough.

"Come on, Agent Bauer. Walk with me," and she set off across the grounds slowly, him walking alongside her, loosening his tie. They wound their way through the soft, green grass, their path taking them around and beneath the trees. The grounds were very large and they had plenty of ground to cover. For a while, they were silent before Mandy, looking at her right arm and it's stitching, decided to talk.

"This is probably, definitely going to leave a scar," she said, frowning disapprovingly. Jack looked at her and took in her expression. And maybe it was the events of the day, or maybe it was just the calm and serenity of the grounds around them and the vast, indifferent, beautiful expanse of sky over his head, but he felt like opening up. He rarely felt that way, and for some reason, with this former (hopefully) assassin, he now felt the need to. Jack did something he usually almost never did; he pushed a sleeve on his suit jacket up. Mandy heard the movement and looked over at him, instantly spotting the scarring and track marks just inside of his elbow. He looked straight ahead, stoically, as he felt her gaze move over the damage he did to himself and then looked over at her, directly into her eyes.

"A lot of things do," he said simply. The simplicity of the statement notwithstanding, he was confused as to why he was opening up to her here, now, when he never opened up, always kept an air of professionalism and a separation of himself and his career. He saw no condemnation in her eyes, she simply raised her dark eyebrows and darted her tongue out to wet her lips before speaking.

"Seems that way, doesn't it?" she asked rhetorically, before adding softly, "And not all of it's visible." He heard every word she said, but said nothing in return. He let his sleeve slide back down and they kept walking. They walked across the grass towards the edge of the woods that surrounded the hospital. Walking along the edge of the trees, they came upon a small, nearly overgrown trail and Mandy looked at Jack questioningly. When Jack said nothing, but gave a slight nod of approval, they stepped into the shadow of the trees and walked down the trail, feet whispering through the weeds. Eventually they came upon a cemetery that climbed gently up a slight hill, the stone graves leaning every which way. Jack hesitated at the edge of the trail.

"Let's go back to the main grounds," he suggested, feeling awkward in a place with headstones bearing only numbers. She was already among the headstones, kneeling down to peer at them intently. Jack sighed and walked over to follow her. She was tracing her fingers over a patient's number, the expression on her face slightly sad.

"I don't get the numbers," Jack said softly. Mandy was brought out of her thoughts and looked up at him as she stood.

"The people who had no family to claim the body were buried here and given only numbers. I guess for confidentiality, maybe? I don't know why, exactly, but that's what's up with the numbers," she said softly, hugging herself tightly to ward off the chill the now setting sun was bringing. Jack stared at the grave, thinking about his faked death and how it had broken his relationship with his daughter. Will she claim my body when I die or will one of my coworkers do it for her? Jack wondered morosely. He closed his eyes.

"Bring out your dead," he said quietly. Mandy looked over at him and saw him, eyes closed and hands clenched. She looked at him curiously. What is he thinking about? She shook her head slightly, unable to figure it out and slowly, she reached slender fingers towards his clenched hands.

Jack, still standing with his eyes closed, felt cool fingers prying between his clenched ones, loosening them, coaxing them open, before finally threading through them and giving them a gentle, reassuring squeeze. He opened his eyes and turned towards Mandy.

"Let's go back now," she said and began pulling him back towards the trail. He didn't resist. By the time they got back to Dr. Swofford, it was close to 7 in the evening. Jack walked her back to her cell, told her he'd be back tomorrow, and then left Danvers.

After calling Buchanan and updating him on the situation and his findings, of which Bill was incredibly skeptical of, he talked to Chloe and asked her to sift through every single available database, legally accessible or otherwise, for records pertaining to "Miranda Stapleton" or just simply "Mandy". Chloe said it would take a while to get literally everything on her that Jack wanted, but promised she would get it done as fast as possible. Jack had hung up the phone just as he entered the parking lot of his hotel. After entering and changing, he went out to find something to eat and pick up some beer. He felt that he deserved a drink before dealing with the complications that the situation with Mandy had kicked up.

And here he was now: lying in bed, not sleeping, thinking about what had happened at the hospital. Thinking of what she said, almost able to remember it verbatim. He thought of the way she looked when she was outside, at peace with herself and the world around her, and he was jealous of her ability to be so serene when her life wasn't even nearly as ordered as his was supposed to be. He had a steady job, a house, a car, an estranged daughter. With the exception of the last, he should be able to feel serene, but inside…inside he felt nothing except emptiness and regret. He cursed her ability to find serenity after what had happened to her. Pissed off, Jack through the sheets off of him and got out of bed. The clock glowed "11:15" in the darkness and he stalked passed it. He stopped and on a whim decided to turn on the radio that was sitting in the living room, sound softly filling the tiny house. There's still a beer in the refrigerator, he thought, moving towards it as he recognized the song.

Underneath the bridge
The tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I've trapped
Have all become my pets
And I'm living off of grass
And the drippings from the ceiling
It's okay to eat fish
'cause they don't have any feelings

He pulled the bottle out and opened it. Immediately, it started to foam and drip onto the floor. He quickly moved over to the sink to let it drip into there. When it was done, he raised the bottle to his lips and looked out the window right above the sink. He looked out into the dark of night and froze, the bottle only halfway to his lips.

Something in the way, mmm
Something in the way, yeah, mmm

In the window, where he should have seen his reflection, for a split second, he saw her reflection. Her pale skin and pink lips, her black hair, her big blue eyes. She was in the window, wearing the exact expression she had when she suggested they leave the cemetery. And just like that, one blink, she was gone, his own reflection replacing hers.

He quickly drained the contents of the bottle and walked back into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

Note: The line about the street light shining through the shades is inspired and taken from the lyrics of Ben Folds, for the song "Fred Jones Part 2". The scene with Jack and the mirror, and the Nirvana song was inspired by the dream sequence in the movie Jarhead. It's better if you listen to the song while reading that part. Review, please!