As soon as it happened she realised her mistake, she felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as his only link to them was disconnected. Chloe paled as she saw the recognition flit across Bill Buchanan's face. He could see what she'd done and the look of horror he gave her added to her existing self disgust. He turned away from her and shouted to Curtis to assemble a team and get to the location immediately.

Jack Bauer was working in the field – alone. It was a high risk operation that depended on her keeping track of his location while tracking the location of the terrorists. And what had she done? She'd accidentally cut off all his modes of communication and lost the terrorists so that he, nor anyone else would know whether they were onto him or not.

Chloe wanted to crawl away, to hide from the expressions on her colleagues' faces – a combination of shock and horror. But she couldn't do that, as much as many people thought that Jack was invincible she knew better. She knew without arrogance that the only thing protecting him from certain death on many occasions had been her. And she never, ever made mistakes. Until today.

She decided that the only way to deal with this for the moment was to concentrate on maintaining communications with Curtis and watch his back in the hope that he would get the opportunity to watch Jack's back for her. Curtis arrived at the location and Chloe held her breath, as did everyone around her. It was several minutes before they heard anything of Jack's whereabouts, during which there was only the sound of a gunfight and the occasional shout penetrating the awful silence.

"Chloe?"

"Here, Curtis"

"We've got him."

"Ok, thanks" she said simply. Her words did nothing to convey the sheer relief that she felt but the expression on her face did. Bill looked at her with concern as she removed her ear piece and excused herself.

Chloe passed the work station of a new analyst who was talking to one of the field agents, she heard the analyst's words clearly despite the fact they were said in a whisper.

"Did you see what she did? If it was one of us she would have hung us out to dry for sure".

Chloe kept her head down, not even able to offer one of her infamous glares. She just walked on by, headed straight for the rest room and locking herself in the cubicle. She allowed herself only a few moments of self indulgence, deciding if it was any longer she'd never be able to return to work. She decided she would figure it all out later when this day was over.

She returned to her workstation, aware that everything was eerily quiet, as though everyone had stopped talking as soon as she walked back in. Chloe just sat and went through the hourlies, not really knowing what else to do, the hum of activity started up as soon as she was again settled at her workstation.

Thirty minutes later, Chloe was alerted to the fact that they'd arrived back at CTU by the activity in the entrance to the bullpen; the rest of CTU had again gone quiet and Chloe wished she'd had the foresight to busy herself in one of the tech rooms so she didn't have to watch them walk in, under the gaze of their colleagues.

She stared at him, relief washing over her at the sight of him. Curtis walked in first, catching her eye and giving her a wink of reassurance. She smiled weakly at him but couldn't bring herself to look directly at Jack who was walking just behind. The room was still remarkably silent and Chloe wished there was a hole she could crawl into.

She took a shuddering breath before glancing up again. As she did she saw him looking at her, his expression unreadable. She held his gaze for a moment but the tears beginning to sting her eyes forced her to look away. She got up and walked away but not before she heard Bill telling everyone to get back to work.

Chloe reached the door of tech 1, it was always her place of solace; somewhere she could lose herself in everything logical, everything that made sense to her. She rested her head against the door, taking in a shuddering breath before reaching to enter the combination to get her into her hiding place.

Before she could enter all the digits she jumped as she felt firm hands on her shoulders, hands that turned her away from the door so that she was facing him. But she couldn't look at him; she just stood staring at his chest until his hand reached out and lifted her chin so she had no choice but to meet his gaze.

"Hey" he said gently, a concerned expression on his face.

The concern in his expression was her undoing. She couldn't understand how, when she had been responsible for almost getting him killed he could still be concerned for her. That wasn't how this was supposed to work, he was supposed to be shouting at her right now; telling her how stupid she was, how irresponsible, how she could never get anything right.

Chloe couldn't stop the tears that streamed down her cheeks, her face crumpling into a feature of despair and utter humiliation. She tried to pull away from him but he held onto her fast. She pushed, but he just held her tighter, soothing her with words of comfort when she would otherwise have fled. Eventually she gave up fighting and sunk into him, her sobs almost silent but for the shuddering impact on her breathing.

Jack leaned over and opened the door, walking her back into the room and closing it behind them so she would not be the topic of office gossip should anyone round the corner and find her sobbing into his arms. But he still didn't let her go.

It was several minutes before Chloe's tears slowed and her breathing steadied. He was still whispering to her in an effort to reassure her.

"Not your fault Chloe, sometimes these things happen. You have to let it go now, have to forget about it."

Eventually she pulled away from him and he let her. She turned so her back was to him and wiped her eyes before again turning to now look at him squarely.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be" he said "you have nothing to be sorry for".

"But I could have killed you."

He laughed then, real humour that made her scowl at him. "Chloe, you could no more kill me than you could kill your own grandmother. With everything you've done to keep me safe, this was bound to happen one day. You are human you know, no matter how hard you try to pretend you're not, I know different."

"But….."

He shook her gently "No buts Chloe, this is over. You need to forget about it."

He mouth opened and closed on the words of protest that continued to form in her mind, the look he gave her telling her he was not open to a debate on the subject.

"Come on, let's get out of here" he said, taking hold of her hand and dragging her along with him.

Chloe was too surprised to stop him when they rounded a corner and saw a couple of analysts heading in their direction. Jack quickly pulled her into an interview room out of sight and picked up his cell phone.

"What are you. . . . ?" He silenced her with a touch of his finger to her lips as he spoke into his phone.

"Bill its Jack. Just wanted to let you know Chloe and I are going AWOL. We'll see you Monday." He smiled as he said "yeah, she's fine. Ok. Thanks, bye."

Chloe scowled and was about to speak again when he told her not to argue with him.

"But where are we going?" she asked as he dragged her out of the room and along the corridor towards the exit.

"I'm taking you out and we are going to get really, really drunk. Then, you are going to forget about this and move on Chloe."

"Drunk?"

"Yes, really drunk"

By now Chloe was getting more than a little annoyed. "What if I don't drink Jack? Maybe I don't want to get drunk; maybe I just want to go home.

"Tough! We're getting drunk Chloe" he said as he opened the car door for her.

He had a gleam in his eye that she'd never seen before as he pulled her seatbelt round her and buckled her up.

"Besides" he said as he tugged a stray strand of hair behind her ear then gently tapped a finger on her nose "I know you like getting drunk".

"How could you possibly know that?" she asked as he settled in the driving seat.

"Chase told me" he smirked.

Chloe groaned. She was going to kill Chase. They drove for several miles before pulling up outside of Jack's apartment.

"Why're we here?" she asked in confusion.

"I thought this was as good a place as any" he said simply as he guided her from the car and into the apartment.

Chloe stood awkwardly while Jack handed her a glass of wine. "Relax Chloe".

"I don't relax" she said simply and he chuckled in response.

"Like I said, that's not what Chase told me".

Chloe rolled her eyes "So, what exactly did Chase tell you?"

Jack smiled. "He told me that when you get drunk you tend to get a little, how did he put it?" he asked with a frown. "Oh, yes, that was it. . . . . liberated, I think that was the term he used."

Chloe felt the heat rise up her neck and colour her face. "You mean he told you that when I get drunk I tend to lose my clothes."

"Yeah, something like that" he said, the gleam back in his eye.

"So you're telling me that you brought me here to get me drunk so that I would become liberated, lose my clothes; and then what Jack?"

He put his glass down on the counter and moved towards her, standing just inches from her. "That's simple Chloe" he said, making her jump as his finger traced the line of her collar bone and settled in between her breasts. His face leaned towards hers so their mouths were only an inch apart. When he spoke again, his warm breath against her lips caused her mouth to drop open slightly. Taking full advantage of her shock, his mouth brushed against hers and he caught her bottom lip gently between his teeth.

"Then, I get naked with you" he said simply as he looked up at her.

"Oh" she said, the shock now washing over her and making her slightly breathless.

Then it was Chloe's turn to surprise him as she reached up and dragged his mouth down towards hers, kissing him with unrestrained passion, their tongues entwining in an age old ritual that had him dragging her body into his.

When they came up for air he rested his forehead against hers in an attempt to settle his breathing while still maintaining close contact with her.

Chloe was the first to speak. "So tell me Jack. . . . ."

"What?" he asked his fingers now drawing small circles against her lower back.

"Why do we need to be drunk to get naked?"

"We don't" he said as he pulled her towards the bedroom, tugging at her clothes as he went.