Title: Short #3
Author: thecrystalkey
Summary: Third in a series of shorts covering some of the time not shown in episode 1 of Day 5. Jack/Chloe friendship.
Spoilers: Season 5 of 24
Disclaimer: Nothing in '24' is mine, especially not the characters that appear or are mentioned here. Also, none of the dialogue you actually recognize is mine. It all belongs to Twentieth Century Fox, Real Time Productions and its creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran.
Four gunshot wounds, three of them (Chloe's) in his stomach and lower chest, meant the guy was as good as dead without medical attention. Actually, the assassin would be dead right now if there hadn't been a chance of getting information from him. They hadn't wanted Jack at all, except that he was in their way. Jack was right there in front of them and the guy giving the orders had still gone straight after Chloe. He needed to know why. And who was behind it.
He ordered her to walk away and take Derek. He knew he sounded harsh. She ducked her chin in that way she had when someone raised their voice to her. They both knew what he was probably going to have to do and neither of them liked it. But she fumbled for Derek's hand and drew him away, out of earshot.
She hadn't heard him promise the man medical attention if he talked, didn't know that this was the man who'd pulled the trigger on David Palmer. And it was the first time she'd seen him shoot a man in cold blood. But when it was done, Chloe had moved forward, leaving Derek staring, horrified, at the body. She'd stood beside Jack and studied the dead man with an unreadable expression.
"He was trying to kill me."
"Yes."
"He put the bomb in Tony and Michelle's car."
"Yes."
"He killed David Palmer."
"Yes."
Her sigh brought his eyes to hers. He'd braced himself to see that look in her eyes, the one Derek had right now, but it wasn't there. Her eyes were steady on his and there was worry there. Her eyes reflected concern and compassion, but no judgement.
"It probably means I really am I some kind of psychopath but…I'm glad he's dead," she stated. "What do we do now?"
He couldn't quite believe what he'd just heard. I'm glad he's dead. What do we do now? Jesus. A single, blunt statement of support and straight back to work. But Jack felt better. She was a gift, and didn't even know it. She had no tact, no social grace, no clue how to use platitudes. Thank God.
"You are not a psychopath, Chloe. And we need to move."
"Are we still going to CalTech?"
"The situation's changed. Do you have your laptop with you?"
"Yeah." Her expression said 'of course' loud and clear.
"Can you get in to CTU from it? Not the archives, active protocols."
"It depends what protocols, but, yeah, I should be able to. What's going on, Jack? What did he tell you?"
"I need to know if you can or you can't. Can you check that without a live connection?"
She paused, wanting an answer to her question. If it were anyone else, she would have asked again. Insisted on an answer before doing anything else. But it was Jack and she trusted him completely. If there was anything Chloe O'Brian was sure of in life, it was that helping Jack was always the right thing to do.
She nodded. "It won't take long, but I need a flat place to work."
He handed her the keys he'd taken from the assassin. "One of these will be for their van. Go get it and drive it over here. I'm gonna do a final sweep. And be careful."
"You, too. What about him?" Her eyes slid over to Derek.
"Don't worry about him, he's my responsibility. I won't be gone long."
With one last look at the boy still staring in shock and horror at what had to be his first dead body, Chloe shook her head and headed for the vehicle.
--
When Jack got back from his sweep, he knew he'd have to explain what he'd learned to Chloe. If there was one thing the computer analyst couldn't stand it was being in an information vacuum. He wasn't wrong. As soon as he'd turned up again, she'd jogged over to him.
"What is going on here, Jack?"
"They're setting me up to take the fall for Palmer's assassination."
"Palmer's not even President anymore, why would they want him dead?"
"I don't know." Jack ran through the scenarios once again in his mind. The President had known something, maybe. Or it could just have been a stunt, a diversion. Stranger things had happened.
"You need to get as far away from here as you can. Just disappear." She sounded afraid again but Jack knew that this time the fear was for him. She hadn't bothered, Jack noted, to finish with an 'I'll do the rest' but it was implied. She was incapable of lying convincingly, they both knew that, but she would stall to give him time to get away. Plant false trails in the computers to lead anyone searching for him in circles. If and when she was caught, she'd refuse to tell them what she knew and she'd refuse to help them find him. She would likely lose her job and might end up in jail. She'd risked both for him before. Jack was glad to have her on his side and was not about to run away and leave her to face the consequences.
"No, what I need to do is find who really killed President Palmer."
"How are you going to do that?"
"Start at the beginning. Investigate the original crime scene. David Palmer was visiting his brother when he was shot, maybe there's something there that can help."
"That's crazy. Palmer was assassinated an hour ago. That place is going to be swarming with secret service, FBI, local police…"
"I need access to a building schematic and an agency deployment grid. Can you get that for me or not?"
"Yeah. I should be able to log on remotely from the site."
"Ok. Come on. Let's go." Without discussion, they both knew she'd be driving. If he was being set-up for Palmer's murder there were good odds that they'd not only planted evidence against him, but that it had already been found. Which meant Jack's face would be recognizable.