God life sucks, Chloe O'Brian thought to herself. Here I am in love with a man who does nothing but shout at me whenever there's a crisis. Oh, there were times that he showed his appreciation but they were few and far between. She knew that a lot of it was down to stress but the thing that grated, the thing that really annoyed her was that while he was shouting at her he was also loving it up with his girlfriend. Why couldn't he shout at Audrey for a change? Or anyone else for that matter. After all, out of everyone Chloe was the one that always went out of her way to give him what he needed. She'd been arrested, fired and almost killed on more than one occasion for him. What had the others done?
In actual fact during their last job together they had worked more closely than ever and Chloe did feel as though he'd appreciated her. In fact he had gone out of his way to make sure she was ok, even encouraging her to lie about her helping him willingly. But she hadn't listened, had she? And how stupid did that make her feel now? Here she was locked up and he was god knows where but probably with Audrey in any case. 'And not giving you, Chloe O'Brian a second thought' she thought to herself.
Most of the time she accepted it, accepted the fact that he was the one making all the sacrifices – she thought it was the least she could do to support him where she could. And now here she was, actually in jail. She couldn't believe it had happened. When she'd first been arrested she'd assumed it would be like all the times before, she'd sit in holding for a couple of hours and when they realised he was right they'd let her go. But not this time; not that Jack was wrong - of course he'd been right all along but they'd decided to make an example of her. After all, they couldn't do that to him; if they did they would never find the terrorists. She'd been here for nearly six weeks and during that time she'd only been visited by her lawyer. No wonder some people ended up betraying their country if this is how their country treated them.
She paced up and down her small cell; she was in isolation, partly because the other prisoners had heard she was a traitor and partly because she was so good at pissing people off that they'd thought it best to keep her away from the others. Well it suited her; suited her to be alone – she was used to it.
She only had a couple of hours to go though; not because they were releasing her but because they were transferring her. She was due to stand trial in Washington in a few weeks and they apparently wanted her moved sooner rather than later as they were concerned that any publicity nearer to the time might result in a media circus. Any intense publicity during a trial like hers was likely to put national security at risk. She'd been told by her lawyer that she was likely to be sentenced to life in prison with little hope of parole unless there was a sympathetic president in office who was prepared to give her a presidential pardon – although that was unlikely apparently. Given the nature of her crimes on top of her part in bringing down the last president it was more likely that the powers that be would want to keep her out of the way for as long as possible.
As she sat down to a solitary meal Chloe hoped that the prison food in DC was better than it was in LA. She pushed her food around the plate for several minutes before abandoning any attempt at eating it. Her musings were interrupted by the sound of the guard opening her cell door. "Come on O'Brian, it's time for you to leave."
Chloe huffed a little at the prospect of the journey ahead. She couldn't really see the point of the trial herself; she knew what the verdict would be but guessed they had to be seen to be following due process. As she walked with the guard through the long prison corridors she was heckled and shouted at by the other inmates; even spat on – but the guard just kept walking, telling Chloe to hurry up. Once at the main prison office, Chloe was kept busy signing transfer papers for half an hour or so. Eventually they had all the relevant documentation and she was escorted into the waiting transfer vehicle. She was shackled to her seat and was alone in the back of the van with just one guard. She saw the outline of the driver and briefly wondered why she was with only the one guard.
They drove for several miles before the van suddenly seemed to veer off the main road and stopped abruptly. She felt panic rise in her throat and a sudden thought occurred to her; one that involved some people not even wanting her to stand trial. She wondered if this had all been set up to finally get rid of her. Well, she decided she wasn't going down without a fight.
