They are closing in on Jack...

... enjoy, and please R&R! amacma

Jack lay in bed, restless. He had been awake for hours, after Dr. Altman had left the room. Actually, he didn't even know how late it was. The room where he was only had one window, and that window was on the side to the hallway and not to the outside.

He wished that he could close the shutters somehow. He felt watched, lying here, all those people on the outside were rushing by and didn't care to look into here anyway, but yet he felt watched.

After she had left, he wasn't able to go back to sleep any more.
She wasn't Audrey. Damnit.
The past hours, before talking to her, his mind had been consumed with thoughts of her. That she had come here to see him… that she had found him, which would mean that either DoD or CTU had also found him, before the Chinese would.

But in the end, this was all an illusion.
That was not Audrey. Nobody had found him yet. No DoD, no CTU. No backup. He was still on his own, lying here, condemned to this bed, like a sitting duck. He was sure that the Chinese were looking for him. He had had no illusions that they wouldn't follow him, as he had decided to take his chances and run.
If he had been a little quicker, just half a minute, everything would be different. They wouldn't have had a chance to fire at him.

He remembered running across the rear deck when they finally found him. They shot at him, right away, even though they knew he was unarmed. Somehow, he managed to stumble the few yards over to the railing and let his body fall over it. He hadn't been thinking of the consequences then. No single second. That there could be something below… another ship or the pier… that he maybe wasn't even able to swim anymore…
Somehow, he had managed to survive, although he wasn't sure how. There had been a few guys on the pier, and they came to drag him out of the water right away. The next thing he remembered was already waking up here, believing that Audrey was here.

Damnit. That doctor really reminded him of her.

For a moment, his fear of being caught by the Chinese again was gone, as Audrey occupied his mind again. Where was she? Was she still in Washington? Or L.A.? Working with DoD or CTU? Was she still trying to find him or had she given him up already?
He couldn't stand to think of her. In the past months, thinking of her was the only thing that had kept him alive. But now, it was painful, to realize that she was still out there somewhere, and he probably wouldn't get the chance to see her again.
It had been such a childish dream… to dream of coming back, to her, to start all over.
It wasn't gonna happen. They were still after him, even if DoD or CTU would find him before them, he'd still be a fugitive on the run.
There was no place for Audrey in his life.

He closed his eyes and leant back, trying to push the thoughts about Audrey out of his mind, to replace them with the thoughts about the Chinese. How close had they come already? Did they already know he was here?
He tried to move his legs. It worked, even though his left leg was in some kind of a splint. The catalogue of his injuries, which Dr. Altman had read to him before sounded long, but in the end, there was nothing very severe on it, except for the shot wounds. Everything else was just superficial.
He could try to leave, maybe tonight or tomorrow night.

As suddenly the door opened.

He tensed up, grabbed the handle above his head, trying to sit up. Had they found him now? He was at their mercy… just like all the time before. They would take him and bring him back, either kill him for his attempt to run or they'd continue to… There was no mercy where they'd go.

Teddy entered the room and closed the door behind her. She saw how he instantly relaxed, collapsing back into the mattress. It was no wonder, she thought, he really must be on the run.
Today he at least looked a bit better and stronger than yesterday.

"How are you feelin?", she asked him, as she went over to the monitors.

"Great.", he just murmured and looked away, still out of breath. She seemed to care about him, but looking at her just reminded him of Audrey again. One more bad thing.

Teddy sighed and grabbed the chair. In a safe distance, she sat down. The distrust that had made her do this the night before had gotten confirmed by appearance of these two agents.
"Who are you on the run from?", she asked him.

Slowly, Jack turned around to her. "What makes you think I'm on the run?" Wow, must have been the largest amount of words I've spoken in months, he thought.

"In the night you asked me when you could leave."

"I guess all your patients ask you that."

"Yes, but not two days after being shot at. Not when they're still in ICU. Not before asking about their chances on recovery." She took a deep breath, "Not before telling me what their name was."

"My name's Frank.", he said.

Bullshit, Teddy thought. But she decided to play along. "And your last name? Social security number?"

"Got no insurance." He couldn't help but sneer. "Throw me out."

That even drew a smile from her face. "No way."

As he saw that, he unwillingly had to smile, too. Wow, my first smile in months, he thought. She really reminded him of Audrey. She was smart, too, and though, just like her.

"You're lying to me.", she silently said, and came a little bit closer. "But I can't help you if you're lying to me."

"You can't help me one way or the other.", he silently answered. She already knew that he was on the run, it was obvious. There was no sense in denying that. "I'm a sitting duck here. I need to leave."

"Who are you on the run from?"

What should he answer? The truth? That he was haunted by Chinese agents? That he had raided their embassy, that he was officially dead, had been in hiding, resurfaced and they had caught him right away? That he'd fled from them and that they could be here in this building already?

"Help me get out of here", he implored her to help him.

Teddy shook her head. "Not before you tell me who you are on the run from."

"I can't tell you that."

"Who shot at you?", she asked, looking deeply into his eyes.

He stayed silent.

Teddy saw how much he wanted to get out of here. "I know you weren't fighting the police.", she added. "You don't seem to be a fugitive."

"I'm not." He slightly shook his head. "How do you know?"

"They were here two days ago and had a look at you, they weren't really interested."

His eyes widened in horror. "The police know that I'm here?" He buried his face in his hands for a moment. Now he was completely fucked.

Teddy heard him murmur a silent damn it. She had even more bad news. "Agents of homeland security were here.", she added.

He froze. "When?"

"Few minutes ago."

"What did you tell them?" He turned around to her, trying to sip up.

"Stay down!", she commanded, really loud – he even complied. She slid her chair closer. Somehow, this man didn't look like a fugitive. He was not on the run from the police. There was something else going on around here. "They came in looking for a man with shot wounds, I told them that we reported all cases to the police, but obviously they didn't know anything about the police report." Finally she pulled the picture out of her pocket, showing it to him. "They were looking for this man."

Jack stared at the picture in her hands.

"You look nothing like this right now… but this is you, right? Jack?"

That was him. The picture from his file… the one they'd made on his first work day at DoD. He hadn't seen himself in a mirror for months, but he guessed that he didn't really look like that man anymore.
"Why did you…" He couldn't even put in words. Why hadn't she brought the agents here? Why hadn't she told them about him?

"You are on the run.", Teddy silently began, "You have wounds all over your body showing that you've been tortured by somebody. You are not an aggressor. You are a victim that we have to protect. Who are you on the run from?" She didn't want to sell him out to the wrong ones. "Do you think these agents can help you?"

He shook his head no. "You said they didn't know about the police reports?"

"No, they didn't." She saw the panic in his eyes. "But they should have known, right?"

He imperceptibly nodded. God, she was smart. She had probably felt it right away that there was something horribly wrong about this. "Help me get out of here-", he read her name tag, "Dr. Altman, I beg you."

She came closer. "Jack…", she began, "Who are you on the run from?"

He feared that she wouldn't believe him. "I can't tell you. You wouldn't believe me."

She straightened up, disappointed. "Then I can't help you, Mr. Bauer." This was taking her nowhere.
For a moment she considered calling these agents. Why not let them do their job? Was it really her business to hide this man from them, only because she had a bad feeling that she couldn't even prove?

Eventually, she stood up and put the chair back to the wall. "I better go." She left the picture that the agents had given her at the side of the bed.

"Dr. Altman", Jack called, as she was already leaving.

Once more, she turned around. "Yes?"

"How did these agents look like?"

Teddy shrugged. "Like all agents.", she spoke, "Black suit, sunglasses, black hair, slick, charmless, dishonest." She could have gone on forever with that list of adjectives.

"Did they look Asian?", Jack asked.

"Yes. Definitely Asian descent." How did he guess that? "Do you know them?"

He shook his head no and leant back, staring at the ceiling.

As Teddy left the room, she felt uneasy.

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please R&R!