What had she been thinking? Clearly she had lost her mind in the store. That was the only explanation for buying this…this….napkin that was passing as a dress.

After leaving CTU Chloe had hurried to the store as fast as possible. She had tried on dress after dress and nothing had worked. Everything was too tight, too revealing or just plain ugly. One sales lady, obviously noticing her hysteria, had tried to pawn a yellow and purple nightmare off on her.

Finally, she had found a dress. It fit, but she could breathe, it wasn't too revealing and it was as perfect as it was going to get. However, when she found it she only had one hour left to get ready. So she had tried it on and when it fit she had the sales lady ring it up. It was only an hour later; with her hair in a messy French twist and her make up done that she looked in the mirror at the finished product.

And promptly screamed.

The dress had not looked like this on the hanger. She was sure it didn't look like this in the mirror at the shop, but she had been rushing and now….

The bra the sales lady had gotten her was not something she would normally wear. It pushed everything up and out so that the line of the dress was no longer as modest as it had looked in the store. God…where had those come from?

The dress length was not bad, just above her knee by a few inches, but she hadn't noticed the slits that went practically to her hips. Combined with the high heels that made her legs look longer than she had ever imagined them looking and one thing was clear. She could not go outside like this. There was no way. She began to tear through her closets, looking for a dress that she knew was not there when Jack's voice came over her intercom.

"Chloe, are you there?"

She ran over to answer, "Jack, I'm not ready." She just barely controlled the shriek that wanted to come out of her mouth.

"It's okay, we've got time, just buzz me in and I'll wait."

Right, buzz him in so we don't have to have this conversation over an intercom. Brilliant Chloe. Finally she buzzed him in and unlocked and opened the door. She could not be in the room when he came in.

"Chloe," he called as he closed the front door.

"I'm in the bathroom Jack."

"Okay. How much time do you need?"

"Time?"

"To finish getting ready?"

"Oh, uh I'm not sure. Maybe you should check back tomorrow."

Jack took a deep breath and said, "Chloe you're ready aren't you?"

"Yes," she said sounding utterly defeated.

"Come out of the bathroom, Chloe."

"No."

"Chloe…" he said with a warning in his voice, "Come out or I'm coming in."

"You can't. I locked the door."

He chuckled, "Chloe, come on."

She rolled her eyes. Okay so the door could be attached to a nuclear bomb and at the most it would only slow him down.

"Okay," she finally relented, "but you need to remember I only had a few hours to get ready and you can't laugh."

"Chloe I won't laugh. Now get out here already."

Taking a deep breath she squared her shoulders and opened the door.

Jack's mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"Okay, well you're not laughing."

"….."

"Jack, say something."

"……"

"Jack, you're really making me nervous. Is it that bad? That's it, I'm not going."

Just then Jack seemed to snap out of it. "No, no, you don't look bad."

She turned back hopefully, "So I look okay?" She could live with okay.

"No, not okay. Chloe, you look...exquisite."

Chloe beamed at him. That one word meant more than anything anyone had ever said to her before.

Jack smiled back at her, "So, now can we go?"

"Yeah," she said smiling, "We can go."

Jack waited as she got her purse and then held out his arm for hers and led her out of the apartment.

She hadn't had time to look up the exact definition of knocking someone's socks off, but she had a feeling that this was a pretty good start.