"How would you know?", Audrey asked her, her voice shaking.
Teddy hesitated with answering. "He said that." She looked over her shoulder to check if they were really alone in the room, "Audrey, I know you've been through much in the past months,… but…" She tore a chair closer to the bed and sat down. "If I tell you that all then I have to be sure that this stays between the two of us."
Audrey sat up in bed.
Usually, Teddy would have told her to stay down, before having completed examining her, but right now, she didn't even care. Audrey seemed to be in not such a bad shape as Jack had been.
"Why?", Audrey asked.
"This is hard to explain" She didn't know where to start.
"Is this about Jack?"
As Teddy didn't answer in an instant, Audrey had her confirmation that this was about something that had to do with Jack. "Tell me", she implored her.
"Only if you give me your word that the things I'm gonna say will stay between the two of us." After all, she was risking her career with helping Jack.
Audrey couldn't hide how worried she was, and how eager to find out anything which had to do with Jack. "I give you my word, Dr. Altman.", she whispered, slipping closer, on the bed. "Tell me… did you see him?", she implored her again.
"Jack was on the same ship like you were."
Audrey shook her head, vehemently, "No, he was brought to ship and exchanged for me, just an hour ago. He was not on the ship..."
"Listen to me…", Teddy interrupted her, "You were on the same ship. It left the port of Shanghai about 30 days ago, arriving here at Seattle eleven days ago. Then it travelled down the US west coast to San Diego, thereafter to Los Angeles and via Seattle it will go back to Shanghai. As it reached Seattle for the first time, Jack grabbed a chance he got and fled the ship. He jumped overboard at the pier, but the Chinese shot at him. Dock workers pulled him out of the water and he was brought here." She saw how Audrey's eyes widened, so she reassured her, "We were able to get the bullets out and stop the bleeding. He survived it."
Teddy saw, how Audrey relaxed again, after hearing this. Hesitatingly, she brought her hands forward, onto the bed, grabbing Audrey's. "Two days after he came here, agents arrived, looking for him. He was sure they were Chinese agents looking for him, to grab him back, and so he ran off."
"What? Two days after…?"
Teddy nodded yes. "And now that's… that are the things that really have to stay between the two of us", she continued, "He was in no shape to survive out there. He came to me one night, as I left from here, asking me for help. I let him stay at my place, gave him some medical attention and… he recovered. Nobody knows this, except for you and me now. He spent there quite some time, Audrey, and he told me a lot of things about you, that's why I know who you are, and what your name is."
Two silent tears ran over her cheeks. She felt like she needed to thank Dr. Altman for having done all that for him.
"He left, yesterday morning. I already thought I'd never see him again because he said that he wanted to disappear for good, because he feared that the Chinese would continue their search for him. But in the night he came back here, that was when he threatened me with the gun, where these surveillance pictures come from that you just saw… he did it just for the cameras, to let no one find out that we know each other. He told me that he had contacted someone of CTU, to hear that you're okay before he'd disappear into hiding forever. That was when he found out that you had gone to China at all. They told him that you both should have been exchanged against a man named Xian Lei Zen five days ago in Los Angeles and that it didn't happen because he had fled the ship. He was so sorry for messing up all these plans to get you out of there. He hadn't known them at that point. On the ship he had heard that they wanted to exchange him for a man named Xian Lei Zen and he panicked and ran, because he figured that the government would never exchange him for that man and that they only wanted to get a chance to silence him. He came here last night and wanted my help to disguise as a doctor today morning, to get to the pier in a standby ambulance that nobody would check. That's where I last saw him."
Horrified, Audrey listened to this, shaking her head. "It went all wrong…", she whispered. "It went all wrong."
"What went wrong?"
"Everything", she whispered, shaking her head and staring into the far. "I should have known he would escape…", she sobbed, starting to tear her hair. "I should have planned for that, too."
"Why should you have known? You couldn't have known this exchange was gonna go down at all.", Teddy stood up, trying to get closer, as her patient was short before dissolving in tears.
Audrey shook her head, slowly leaning towards Teddy. "Now this is something that has to stay between the two of us, too", she whispered, looking into her eyes. "Because nobody else knows that."
All Tensed up, Teddy slightly nodded.
"I planned this exchange.", she spoke. "Three months ago."
Jack looked at the body of the dead guard that was lying in front of him. God, that man had given him hell on so many months… it was a real pleasure to see him lie there.
His plan had worked out so far. It had taken some time to pick the plaster of the splint away to get to the knife. The guard had walked past his door twice during that time, so it meant that they were already three hours and probably 40 miles away from the harbor. He needed to do something now, to get off that ship, or otherwise he wouldn't make it back to the coast alive. He was running out of ideas anyway, how to get back to the coast. Jumping off board was one possibility, with a life vest… but it the cold February sea would probably kill him after a few minutes. Fleeing with the only lifeboat on board was not really an option either. They'd see this right away and he'd be a sitting duck in that orange boat with no motor.
He had changed clothes already with the guard, and now he dragged him into the corner of the cell, resting him in such a position that from the outside, another guard could only see the man's legs, looking like they were his, in these dirty and blood-smudged blue jeans.
Everything should look normal from the outside, to give him at least a few minutes, if not half an hour of advantage.
When he had finally locked the cell again, he made his way down the barely lighted corridor. He needed to get to the deck, somehow, if not to jump then at least to see where they already were.
An emergency staircase looked promising.
So far, he hadn't seen anyone around here except for the guard. There were probably only 20 to 30 persons on this 250 yards long ship – but yet he checked on the gun which he had taken from the guard, and the knife in his pocket.
After climbing up four floors, there was finally a door with a porthole.
He gazed outside, finding the coastline of a piece of land that he guessed to be Vancouver island in the distance. They were probably passing the strait of Juan de Fuca right now, and soon they'd be in international waters.
But not yet.
The coastline of Canada was more than ten miles away. He guessed that the US coastline would also be at least another 15 miles away. He couldn't jump off and try his luck. Somehow, he had to force this ship to turn back.
"Sir, you can come in, now.", Teddy silently spoke, holding the door to Audrey's room open for Heller.
The old man thanked her and went past her, into the room.
She could feel how tense he was, to see his daughter again, for the first time, after such a long period of time. She had been in the hands of the Chinese for two and a half months.
But she was also all tensed up, after hearing from Audrey the full truth about what she'd gotten torn into, with Jack and this DoD mission.
She didn't miss that worried glance in Audrey's look, that she threw at her, as she told Heller that she'd leave them alone for a few minutes.
Feeling uneasy, Teddy closed the door behind her and started to stroll down the corridor. Actually, she had no plan what to do now. Officially, it was her day off today, but she didn't want to go home, even though she slowly started to feel really tired.
The things that Audrey had told her just wouldn't get out of her mind. She didn't want to go back home, into her empty apartment. Instead, she felt an almost desperate wish to go back in there and talk to that woman again.
She didn't even notice Owen, who had kept her in sight, ever since she'd left Audrey's room. Slowly he approached her. He was worried to find her so tired and so deeply drowned in thoughts. "Teddy?"
She looked up into his eyes.
"Are you really okay?" He was afraid that what had happened during the night was now starting to show its consequences.
"I'm okay.", she silently answered, "Just a little tired. I guess I'll lie down in one of the staff rooms and I'll be okay. It's seven hours until the night shift starts.", she sighed.
"You don't have to do this night shift.", he hurriedly said. He didn't want her to be here again, alone, just one night after the one when that maniac had kidnapped her. "I won't let you work tonight."
"Please, Owen", she began, already making her way over to the staff room. Funny, that it was exactly the room where she and Jack had spent the night. "I don't wanna go home and be there all alone. It'll just get my brain running wild all night." Of course her brain would be running wild. Of course it had something to do with Jack. But not in the way that Owen was thinking right now.
He felt like having to protect her, from herself. But right now, he didn't even know what was best for her. "Are you really sure?", he asked her again. He couldn't hide it any more, how worried he was about her, and he didn't want to hide it.
"Yes", she tried to put on a smile for him, "I'll be okay, just let me get some rest"
As he watched her disappear into the staff room, he made his decision: He'd have to stay as well. He couldn't leave her alone tonight.
Teddy closed the door behind her, relieved that she had succeeded in convincing Owen that she could do this night shift. She wanted to be here. The night shift was usually not so much filled with work and boring… she'd get the time to steal herself away from her other duties.
She looked at the bed, and at the chair next to it.
Just a few hours ago, she'd been sitting there, watching Jack sleep.
Slowly, she went over to it and lay down there, hoping to find something that would remind her of him… but no. Someone must have changed the covers during tidying the room. There was nothing of him left. No smell, nothing.
She looked at the place right next to the cushion, where he'd put his gun, always in reach.
It was of no use to him now. Heller's men took it away.
Lying here, her mind was even racing worse than before. Where was he? How badly had they hurt him? Was he still alive?
She guessed that Audrey was lying her room, too, having just the same thoughts.
The thoughts didn't get any better.
The longer she kept lying here, the worse they got. What he had told her, during the lonely nights, about how they had tortured him, got mixed up with the concerns in her head.
She wanted to work again, just to be able to forget this all for a moment. But she knew that she was way too tired to be unleashed at a patient.
She really needed to sleep, not to fuck something up during the coming night shift.
To kill the thoughts, she grabbed the remote and switched on the TV, aimlessly switching through the channels to kill the boredom.
BREAKING NEWS - - - Container ship caught fire north of Port Angeles - - - Authorities warn residents of Port Angeles and Port Townsend to stay inside their houses and keep the windows closed until type of cargo is confirmed - - - Coastguard confirms several explosions on the ship - - -
Teddy sat up in bed, staring at the screen. King 5 was showing pictures of an immensely large ship, painted orange, with big Chinese ideographs on its sides, taken from a helicopter. Columns of smoke rose from three points of the ship. The speaker was telling that they were afraid the ship would get disabled and adrift.
She shivered, pulling the blanket around her shoulders, already knowing that it wouldn't make it better.
Spellbound, she stared at the pictures of the ship.
And now she was sure, that she wouldn't get any sleep at all.
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.
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Guys, this is really hard to write, somehow… when I write, I have a picture in my head of what is going on there – do you know how many times I got the names Teddy and Audrey mixed up? :-) damn it…