Thank you so much for the reviews! I actually got more reviews than I expected and they were so positive! Here is part 2 – Diane's perspective. Hope you enjoy and please don't forget to review.

The Debriefing

Day 5: 11:23 am

Part II: Diane

"I had no idea that Jack worked in a place like this," Diane Huxley commented as she cleared security and walked through CTU with Audrey Raines.

Diane had never seen anything like CTU. She was amazed by all of the activity going on around her. She wished that Derek hadn't been taken away from her. It made sense to have a doctor examine him, but she would have felt better if she could have stayed with him. Damn it! she thought. I should have insisted on staying with him. The place intimidated her, the people intimidated her and part of her was simply afraid to press the issue. She wanted Jack. This was his world, not hers. She rarely depended on a man to take care of her, but right now, in this place, she wanted Jack to take care of her.

"Is Jack coming back here?" she asked not wanting her insecurity to show.

Audrey assured her that he was. That made her feel a little better as she climbed the stairs and entered a glass enclosed office. Audrey offered her coffee but she declined. Caffeine was the last thing she needed at that point. She was jittery enough without it. The thought that Derek could have been murdered at the airport sent a shiver up her spine. She couldn't imagine life without him. Derek was all that was important to her in life and as hard as it was to be a single parent, she cherished him. When she was honest with herself, she realized that she didn't have much else. Her job wasn't great, but it paid most of the bills as long as there were no surprise expenses and the spare room was rented out. Without a renter, she was short on the mortgage every month.

Generally, renting the room wasn't a problem. She knew Ned, the supervisor over at the oil rigs. When the current renter moved out, Ned would send her one of the new guys who was looking for a place to stay. He tried to send only the nice ones to her, but that didn't always work out as planned. She had had a series of men living in the room over the years. Some had been okay. They paid their rent on time and kept to themselves. More often than not the guys thought rent should include more than just a room and dinner every night. She spent more time than she cared to remember fending off unwanted advances. Early on she had allowed herself to become involved with a couple of the nicer ones. At that point she was barely 20 and newly divorced with a toddler. Her ex-husband never kept a job long enough to pay any child support, so she was always flat broke. She thought her only way out of the rut she was in was running headlong into another marriage. The men weren't always the best, but at least they seemed to offer some stability and an income. None of the relationships worked out and, over time, Diane found a job and became more and more self-sufficient. More recently she had tried to keep significant distance between herself and her renters. The room and attached bathroom had a separate entrance so they had no need to come into the house. She had stopped letting any renters eat dinner in the kitchen and required them to pick up their dinner at the kitchen door, eat it in their room and return the dishes later.

That was how it was when Frank Flynn moved in. She approached him with the same wary eye that she did all new renters but knew immediately that he was different than the others. He was nicer and more refined. His speech pattern suggested to her that he was educated beyond high school and she noticed that he frequently came home with a stack of books from the local library. As hard as Diane tried not to notice him, she couldn't help herself. He was quiet. He never came home drunk and didn't cause any problems. If he saw her carrying something heavy, he took it from her. When she was on a ladder trying to fix a window one day, he helped her down and proceeded to make the repairs. She thanked him and offered to give him a break on the next month's rent, but he declined. It was a little thing, he said. He liked helping around the house.

Jack had been renting for a little over a month when late one afternoon, he stopped by the kitchen door to pick up his dinner. Diane and Derek were in the middle of an argument when she opened the door. He could tell by the red that had risen in her cheeks that she was more than a little angry.

"Derek, your algebra teacher called me again today. You haven't handed in any homework in the last two weeks. I made a deal with her; if you finish it and hand it in by the end of the week, she'll only reduce the grade by one letter. If you don't, you'll fail algebra this quarter."

"If I could do the homework I would have, Mom. The teacher stinks. She doesn't teach us anything and then expects us to figure it out ourselves. I have no idea how to do the work. Besides, I don't need algebra to work on an oil rig. In three years I'll be out of school and I'll get a job and no one will care what my algebra grade was."

Diane absently handed the dinner tray to Jack and turned to continue the argument.

He thanked her for it intending to let mother and son argue without his intervention and then thought better of it. "I was always pretty good with math," he said. "Maybe I could give you some help after dinner."

"Oh, Frank, would you?" Diane replied gratefully. "That would be wonderful. Wouldn't that be great, Derek?"

"Oh, yeah," Derek said sarcastically. "I'm sure you're a math whiz. That's why you work on an oil rig and rent a room from us. I guess there aren't any better jobs out there for math majors there days." The boy had already become wary of their new tenant. He seemed so secretive. His mother called it "private", but Derek thought it more likely that he was hiding some dark secret.

"Derek!" Diane said sharply.

"It's okay, Diane," Jack said softly. "You can believe what you want, Derek, but I am good in math. I'd like it if you'd give me a chance to help you."

"Derek, please," his mother implored, "give Frank a chance. He might be able to help."

"Alright," Derek said with a defeated tone to his voice.

"Great," Diane said with a relieved sigh. "Listen, Frank, why don't you just eat here with us tonight. That way you and Derek can get started right after dinner."

Jack shook his head. "Thanks, but I don't think that's a good idea. Dinner is family time. You and Derek should share that time."

Diane laughed, "I don't think Derek and I are going to share any meaningful conversation tonight. Please, stay."

Jack smiled and looked at the floor as he turned and walked back into the kitchen and set the tray down on the table. "Thank you," he whispered.

"Derek, wash your hands and we can eat dinner," Diane directed him.

Derek eyed Jack cautiously. "I'm not very hungry. I'll just be in my room. Call me when you're ready to start on the homework." The teenager turned and sulked up the stairs. He hated renters. He hated it that the only way his mother could make ends meet was to rent out that spare room. The renters were always jerks who just wanted to get in his mother's pants. This guy was leaving his mother alone but there was just something weird about him.

"Diane, I didn't mean to spoil your dinner with your son," Jack said apologetically. "I just thought I could help."

"Dinner was spoiled from the minute the argument started," Diane said with a wry smile. "It's been this way ever since he started high school. We fight about everything. I guess he's just trying to show me that he's independent. I guess it's part of growing up. It doesn't help that he doesn't have a father around."

The two chatted quietly through dinner. Mostly, Jack listened while Diane talked about how hard it was to be a single parent and how her alcoholic ex-husband had nothing to do with his son. It wasn't until they finished and stood up to clear the table that Diane realized that she had just talked about herself for the last forty-five minutes.

"I'm sorry," she said shaking her head. "I didn't mean to go on like that. I guess you're sick of hearing my sob story."

"Not at all," Jack assured her. "There's not much I can do to help, but I don't mind listening." The two stared at each other for a long moment. Jack spoke and broke the spell. "Why don't you call Derek and I'll help him with his homework."

Diane cleaned up the kitchen while Derek and her new renter worked on algebra. She was impressed at how well Frank worked with Derek. He was patient and offered encouragement. He ignored Derek's teenage testiness and attitude as they worked through the problems. She tried not to stare, but the scene was so father-son, one that she had hoped Derek would share with his biological father.

Two and a half hours after they started, a week's worth of algebra homework was done and Derek was doing most of it on his own. Diane went to bed that night torn by her feelings for this man. His actions tonight had proved to her that he wasn't an ordinary oil rig worker. He was too well educated. Why was he so secretive? What was he running from?

She found herself trying to explain and justify his behavior. He could be a criminal running from the law. That seemed wrong. He just seemed too nice and too kind to be a criminal. Or maybe he was an author who was trying to experience life on an oil rig as research for a book. It seems a little far fetched, but it's a nice fantasy, she thought as she slipped between the well worn sheets that covered her bed. He might be a struggling author about to write his first best seller. She lay awake in bed imagining that he wrote her into the story and then dedicated the novel to her. Eventually he would come back and admit his undying love for her and take her away from this hell hole. They would have a nice house and Derek could go to a good school. She wouldn't have to work at Wal-Mart any more. Even in her own mind she knew that this was a ridiculous fantasy, but it was fun to dream.

Their relationship progressed, which is to say that much to Derek's dismay, Jack started eating dinner in the kitchen on a daily basis and he continued to help Derek with homework. He also started helping out around the house. Diane loved having him around even if she frequently found herself defending him to Derek. Slowly he began spending more time with Diane. They would watch movies together in the evening or sit and talk while waiting up for Derek to get home from a friend's house. It was one of those evenings while Derek was out that they kissed for the first time. They usually watched comedies or action flicks but that night they watched a drama that had just been nominated for an Academy Award. The sentimental story line got to Diane and tears brimmed along her lower lids and eyelashes for a long time before they got heavy enough to fall. She tried to wipe them away discreetly, but Jack noticed immediately and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. How romantic is that? What guy carries a handkerchief these days? She was about to take it from him, when he unexpectedly reached over and dabbed the tears from her face. The next thing Diane knew, he was stroking her face gently and leaned forward to kiss her. The kisses were shy and friendly at first but it didn't take them long to deepen. They both enjoyed the long, slow kisses, but with Derek coming home at any minute, they didn't allow it to progress any further.

Diane knew when she went to bed that night that she was falling in love. How could she help but love this man. He was easily the most handsome, articulate, polite, sexy-as-hell hunk of a man she had every known. Until that night when they kissed, he had never touched her before. Diane had begun to wonder why Frank, unlike virtually every renter she had ever had, never made a pass at her. Her fear was that he was gay. That was depressing. He was the best guy who had ever walked into her life and he was probably gay. That figures, doesn't it? Finally somebody good lands in my lap, and the son of a bitch is gay. That night had been a pleasant surprise. Not only was he not gay, he had the sense not to push her for sex when her teenage son was due home. The word "gentleman" described him to a T.

Derek didn't bother to hide his displeasure that Frank was worming his way into Diane's heart and into their family. He worried about his mother and didn't want her getting hurt. He also hated that people thought that just because she rented rooms to oil rig workers that she slept with them, too. Derek knew differently. His mother kept her distance from the renters. He had seen her push away unwanted touches more than once. He had already decided that he was old enough now to defend her and the next time one of those jerks laid a finger on her he was going to deck the bastard. Now here she was actually falling for one of those losers. He couldn't punch Frank when he put his hand on top of hers and squeezed it, because she liked it. Derek lay awake at night listening for telltale sounds that Frank had moved into his mother's bed but try as he might, he never heard anything. Despite their growing love, the couple had decided that in order to set a good example for Derek that their relationship would not become intimate.

Audrey closed the door to the office; a signal to Diane that she needed to come back to reality. She sat down on the sofa in the glass walled office while Audrey sat down behind the desk and opened a file folder. Diane couldn't imagine what kind of questions they wanted to ask her. She didn't know anything. She didn't even know that Frank's real name was Jack Bauer until a couple of hours earlier. She got the sense, however, that Jack might be in some trouble with the government, even though he managed to save the lives of everyone at the airport. She definitely wanted to make sure that anything she said about him to Audrey was positive. Regardless of what they wanted to charge him with, she wasn't going to give them anything to fuel the fire.

Audrey put on her glasses. It made her look older, more confident and in charge. "You said that Jack 'lived with you' for the last six months. Is that correct?" Audrey asked.

Diane knew where this was going. Oh, yeah, bitch, she thought, you think I'm some kind of slut that sleeps with every guy that comes into town. "He rented a room."

Audrey squinted slightly looking confused, "You don't have a personal relationship with Jack?"

"I'm not sure that's any of your business," Diane replied as nicely as she could. She was out of her element here and she didn't want to say anything to piss off the government. Rumor had it that they could make you disappear if they wanted to. But by the same token she wasn't going to let this woman make her look like the town harlot either. So she forced down her ire a bit and explained that Jack or Frank or whoever he was had been good to her and to her son and that she cared about him. Audrey seemed surprised by that; she didn't seem to know what to say next. As if Diane had caught her off guard.

When Audrey recovered, the rest of her questions were more mundane and Diane told them what she knew, which was nothing.

Diane was looking up at Audrey when the woman's eyes moved toward some movement in the hallway. She stopped speaking as if the words suddenly got stuck. Diane turned to see what Audrey was looking at and caught sight of Jack. She looked again at Audrey who remained stock still, dumbstruck.

"Will you excuse me for a minute?" she asked.

"Yeah," Diane said softly not sure if Audrey heard or even cared what her answer was.

Diane closed her eyes. Jack had walked down the hall and Audrey had followed him so she couldn't see what was happening between them. In reality, she didn't have to see. She knew from the looks on both of their faces that they more than knew each other. They had been lovers. They still loved each other. It was obvious.

Damn it! I thought I finally had someone who really loved me and loved Derek and wanted to be part of our lives. I thought we could be a family. Asshe watched Audrey follow Jack, a feeling of inadequacy fell over her like a pall. Look at her. How could he ever love me after seeing her again? How can I compete with that?

Diane sighed heavily and tears filled her eyes. She thought about Audrey's finely chiseled features with just the perfect touch of makeup and her soft blond hair. She ran her fingers through her own coarse, wavy auburn mop and looked down at the blue jeans and tee shirt that she was wearing. The suit Audrey was wearing probably cost more than Diane made in two weeks. Audrey was beautiful and educated and had a career; everything that Jack Bauer could want. She had barely finished high school and was the assistant manager of the girls' department in the local WalMart. Not exactly a career. For years she had been taking college courses as the local community college. Her dream was to get a degree in education. She had done well in school and wanted to be a teacher for as long as she could remember. At the moment community college seemed so lame compared to the kind of exclusive private university that she assumed Audrey had gone to. Right now her whole life seemed worthless and lame. She wondered what Jack and Audrey were saying to each other. Was he holding her in his arms and kissing her?

I'm so stupid! She chided herself. What ever made me think that Jack would still care for me once he was back here among his equals? Frank Flynn may have been an oil worker who loved Diane Huxley but Jack Bauer belonged at CTU and he loved Audrey Raines.