Title: What do you mean, she fired you?
Author: thecrystalkey
Summary: Jack/Chloe friendship
Spoilers: Season 3 of 24, (also some Season 4)
Disclaimer: Nothing in '24' is mine, especially not the characters that appear or are mentioned here or any of the plot lines mentioned. Even the background I created for Chloe came from hints dropped on the show. It all belongs to Twentieth Century Fox, Real Time Productions and its creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran.
Author's Note: 17:30 on a Sunday and I'm still at work.Chemistry, BTW, involves lots of time waiting for reactions to finish. This is what happens when I have an hour at time to myself and don't have to pretend to be doing work. Actually this was inspired by Abs a few days back. I wanted to make it better before posting but having read it over three times, I'm now thinking the only way to do that is to go ahead and hope somebody out there can tell what's missing. This feels unfinished, but I'm out of scenes...
"What do you mean, she fired you? She can't fire you."
"She's the Director of CTU, Chloe," Jack explained. "She can fire anybody that she wants. And I don't think she was wrong."
"You expected this." Nobody said Chloe O'Brian wasn't quick on the uptake. They said a lot of other things about her, but not that.
"Yes. I did. I was addicted to heroin, Chloe. She doesn't want an ex-junkie in charge of field operations. In her place, I can't say I wouldn't feel the same way."
He'd expected Chloe's reaction as well, to tell the truth. When he'd hired her, she'd been friends with his partner, Chase Edmunds. And while they'd been on a first name basis, Jack had never thought of her as more than a colleague. She did her job, and did it well, but wasn't the kind of person who socialized at the office.
Then there had been that mess with the Salazars and Stephen Saunders. At the end of a couple of the worst days of his life, they had been the only two senior CTU staff left standing. Even a year later, Chase was still in physical therapy for the hand he'd had to have surgically re-attached; Tony Almeida, CTU's Director, was in jail for treason; Michelle Dessler, Tony's wife, had taken personal leave for the duration of her husband's trial; and Adam Kaufman, CTU's senior computer analyst, had had a break-down over the death of his sister and resigned from CTU.
So Jack had stepped in to run things until a replacement for Tony could be appointed. And since Chloe was the only person Jack actually trusted behind a computer, she'd become CTU's de facto senior analyst. Technically, she wasn't, but nobody had argued when she started giving orders.
In the three months it had taken Division to find a replacement Director, Jack and Chloe had become a team. He'd found himself relying on her more and more, and every time she'd risen to the challenge. The leadership position she'd ended up in had suited her. She'd confessed to Jack once that she'd felt restricted with the way things had been before, because Adam hadn't been very fond of people with initiative. Even if you saw something that needed to be done, he still expected you to wait until he told you to before doing it.
Her command style was exactly the opposite. As evidenced by the conversation he'd overheard once between her and some hapless analyst.
"Do you know what your job is?" she'd asked, in a tone that made it clear the question had better be rhetorical. The tech must have nodded because the next thing Jack heard was: "So do it and stop asking me questions that you should already know the answers to."
She also took personal responsibility for her people. If something wasn't done on time, or right, she stepped up and took the blame. If there was praise, she made sure the credit went where it was due. Jack approved of that, and had said so once.
"Who do you think I learned it from?" she'd asked dryly.
It hadn't actually taken them more than a week to become a smoothly functioning team. Jack had always trusted her competence, but had usually left it to Chase to deal with her. It hadn't taken him long of working directly with her to learn to trust her.
Somewhere in that three months of working together, all those late nights and early mornings, they had also become friends. It had been an unexpected development, but a welcome one. And it meant he could predict her reactions fairly well now.
"I still can't believe you're not even a little upset that Driscoll is firing you," she was saying now.
"Believe it or not, it's true. I want you to promise me something."
"What?"
"Don't give Erin a hard time over this."
She huffed and rolled her eyes, but stopped arguing. "Fine. Whatever. I still don't like her. What are you going to do now? How long do you have?"
"I have two weeks to get everything in order," Jack answered. "After that…I've had some offers from other agencies. Some for office jobs in DC. I need to think about it."
---
Erin Driscoll sat behind her desk, pretending to be thinking. In reality, she was watching the conversation in Jack Bauer's soon-to-be-former office. She had no doubt he would land on his feet. Neither did he, apparently. He'd taken being fired very well.
Officially, he would be resigning, but when he'd called Chloe O'Brian over as he crossed the floor back to his own office, Erin had known he was going to tell at least one person the truth. It had been nine months since Erin had arrived to take over the reigns as head of CTU Los Angeles. She'd allowed Bauer to remain as head of Field Ops for that long to make sure that the transition of power was a smooth one. He did his job well and that was enough, despite the security risk he represented as an addict, for her to keep him on until she had her bearings.
In those nine months, she'd observed the people around her. The most interesting to observe were Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brian. They worked together as a seamless unit, but hardly ever seemed to speak to each other. When they did speak, he was impatient and she was sarcastic. Yet the only times Erin had seen either of them smile, genuinely smile, was in private conversation with the other. Those moments were few and far between, blink and you'd miss them. Erin herself had only noticed because she'd been watching the two individuals so closely.
She had been trying to assess O'Brian before confirming her as Senior Analyst, and had been keeping a close eye on Jack because of his history of drug use. In her observations, she had come to a number of conclusions.
Chloe O'Brian had no social skills, and possibly a personality disorder, but she ran her department with an efficiency that Erin respected. The other woman didn't like her, but Erin didn't require that in her employees. Chloe did her job and never gave it less than her full effort.
The only thing that might have caused a problem was Chloe's relationship to Jack Bauer, whatever it was exactly. Erin had already considered and dismissed the possibility that they might be lovers. There wasn't that level of intimacy there. But they were more than colleagues. Friends, then; however unlikely even that seemed. And Chloe's record documented her loyalty to her friends.
Luckily that wouldn't be a problem, Jack's own record took care of that. He was a good operative, but Erin wasn't comfortable with a former junkie on her staff. No matter if it was in the line of duty. So Erin had no problem confirming Chloe's appointment as Senior Analyst. As long as Chloe didn't have a problem working for the person who had fired Jack Bauer.
Judging from Chloe's expression as Jack spoke with her, Erin would need to have a talk with her later. She made a note to herself to call Chloe in for a private chat before the end of the day.
--
"Is this going to be a problem, Chloe?"
"Is what going to be a problem, Ms. Driscoll?"
"The fact that I fired Jack earlier today. I assume he told you."
"Yeah, he did. Why would it be a problem? Besides the fact that he's the best field agent this office has?"
"He used to have a drug problem. I find that an unacceptable security risk."
"I know. He said that, too. You're the Director. It's your choice. Why do you care what I think about it?"
"You and Jack are friends. You have a history of loyalty to your friends. I wanted to be sure that the fact that I fired a friend wouldn't interfere with your ability to work for me."
"You really want me to be honest, Ms. Driscoll?"
"I'd appreciate it, yes."
"Fine. I don't like you and I probably never will. I think you were wrong to fire Jack and I'll probably always think that, too. Just because I don't like you doesn't mean I can't work for you. And just because I think you're wrong on this one issue doesn't mean I'm gonna go around trying to undermine your authority. I don't let personal feelings interfere with my work."
"And I'm just supposed to believe you?"
"What do you want me to say? You either do or you don't. If you don't, then fire me. If you do, then I have work to do."
Erin held Chloe's eyes for a moment, assessing the other woman's sincerity.
"Very well. You can go back to work."
"Thank you."
Erin chose to ignore the sarcasm in that last statement.
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