When Chloe wrapped up her work for the day, she had gone looking for Jack, whom she last saw speaking with Bill, Karen and Nadia. Upon Graham's ousting, VP Daniels had turned CTU's command back over to Nadia, since it would have been seen as a sign of weakness to reinstate someone whose resignation had basically been demanded, like Bill or Karen. For the duration of the current crisis and recovery operation, she was given the authority to use whatever resources were available to her, including outside consultants…like Bill.

Ah, politics. How they unnecessarily complicated things.

So at least the CTU's resources were now assisting with the rescue efforts. As Chloe looked around, she saw Nadia and Reese looking at a map of security perimeters around the Hot Zones, while Bill and Rivers were talking personnel deployment. Karen was speaking with someone on the phone and as Chloe watched, the woman nodded to her husband who added something to the list he was compiling.

Jack was nowhere to be seen on the comms floor.

The sound of a throat being cleared made her turn to regard Nick, who was pushing himself from one station to another on a rolling chair, shutting down programs and logging himself off of the systems. When she met his gaze, he pointed out of the room and said, "Saw your boy heading to medical 'bout an hour ago."

"Thanks," she said with a nod and turned to head down there to check. He had promised to see the doctor, but she wanted to make sure he waited and got the results. After a few steps, she stopped and turned, looking back at Nick and said, "Good work today."

Normally, she wasn't one to offer praise, but the younger man had proven to be very good at his job once freed from Abelard's oppressive thumb. He did his work, took initiative and got results. That was something to be encouraged.

Mankuba offered a grin and a salute, touching two fingers to his brow before returning to his task.

As she walked down the hall, Chloe made a mental note to find out if he'd be interested in a job at CTU…that is, if there still was a CTU after things settled down.

She entered Medical to find the place silent and more or less abandoned. In fact, it seemed as though Jack was the only person in the place. He was sitting on one of the treatment beds, his heavy hoodie pulled on over what looked to be a set of scrubs. His bare feet were swinging slightly as they dangled and Chloe smiled as she watched him for a moment.

"Hey," she said, causing him to look up from his apparently intense study of the material of his pants. "How are things going?"

Jack shrugged and offered a rueful grin. "Have you met Dr. Armstrong? Very thorough and not too happy that I never got my shoulder looked at till now, but on the positive side, I barely felt the needle for the blood work."

Crossing the room to stand by the bed, Chloe leaned her hip against the wall, then hopped up to sit beside Jack when he patted the empty space. "That's all? I mean, I know it's bad enough but…."

His body was covered in scars and she figured after 20 months, there had to be more than surface damage.

He sighed. "He did a complete physical…and took some scans of my right hip. It's a little tender."

"Huh." He hadn't said anything about it before, but Chloe was well versed in the world according to Jack Bauer. If he was admitting that something was a little tender then most people would probably be requesting heavy duty narcotics to help them get through the day. "I've got a heating pad at home somewhere. You can use it tonight."

"Thanks," he replied with a smile but before they could continue on, a brisk voice interrupted.

"In my own opinion, you should be curled up in a ball weepin' or in coma if you were lucky, which you obviously ain't. I've no idea how you're still upright, let alone runnin' 'round doin'…your thing."

Dr. Allan Armstrong was a slender young man with a shock of reddish hair and a rough, North London accent. He had a chart in hand, obviously full of the quick results of Jack's blood work. The doctor's eye's were on the papers as he re-entered the room from the attached lab area. He paused when he noticed Chloe and said, "Sorry, uh, could you give us a moment please?"

"She can stay," Jack replied quickly and Chloe jumped slightly when his fingers wrapped around his wrist to keep her close. This made Chloe think he was a bit nervous about finding out what the results of the tests said despite his earlier insistence that he was fine.

"Right then," the doctor sighed and consulted the chart again. "Let's start with the vitamin deficiencies, shall we? A, B, B12, C, D…basically, you're low on the whole alphabet. A few boosters and some daily multi-vite's should help with that. Then we have Magnesium, Folic Acid, Calcium, Zinc and Niacin all quite low, Cobalamin and Iron very low. You have quite the case of Anemia, so I recommend plenty of red meat in addition the pills I'm going to prescribe."

So far, nothing sounded too terrible. Chloe had been expecting a few deficiencies and all of these were things that diet and supplements could help fix.

"Now, the more worryin' is you potassium level, which is very low. You're mildly hypokalemic, so I'm gonna to give you a heavy dose of K in a moment, then a prescription you have to follow. I'll need to see you back in three days. If these levels haven't risen considerably, we'll put in an IV. This is serious. Your potassium drops too low, you die."

That was indeed a bit more worrying and Chloe made a mental note to foist bananas on Jack whenever possible.

"WBC's are a bit elevated, probably fightin' off infections in any of the number of open wounds you're wearin'…but can I say, you're immune system is extremely robust, especially for someone with Anemia and the rest of those vitamin issues. I mean, a normal person in your state would pick up a germ and their whole body would just be ravaged, but you…Your WBC's are like El Al security personnel. Highly trained, ruthless and incredibly effective."

Even Jack seemed a bit amused by the young man's babbling and Chloe supposed this must be Armstrong's version of bedside manner. She found she liked it much better than the usual coddling of civilian doctors or the brisk rudeness of most CTU medical personnel.

"Movin' on, aside from the scars, you're in surprisingly good shape, considering what you went through. In a few years, when the signs of arthritis start appearin', I'm sure the healed fractures'll act up, but for now no breaks, ligaments and tendons are intact and no internal damage…other than that hip you mentioned."

Armstrong pulled out something that looked to Chloe to be a fancy X-Ray. From the expression on Jack's face, it meant as little to him.

"What am I looking at?" Jack asked, not looking particularly happy with this revelation.

"Your hip and the bursa sac which cushions the joint. Basically, what you have here is Trochanteric bursitis. The bursa sac is inflamed from trauma and years of physical activity. While you're time in China didn't help matters, it's not the root cause. I'll give ya a treatment regime you can start on at home, but you might want to look into a sports physiotherapist."

Chloe wondered if they had any physio's vetted and cleared to know any details of what they did and how exactly Jack had been hurt. Probably, considering all the damage their agent's tended to do to themselves…though CTU field agent's did tend to die of their on the job injuries and thus not require after care. Not the best statistic for recruiting new agents, which they were in dire need of at the moment.

Instead of making that point, Jack just said, "Thanks." Then he held out a hand, obviously requesting the aforementioned prescriptions and treatment advice. He didn't want to prolong the amount of time he had to stay in Medical, and Chloe could understand his motivations, but she felt compelled to ask a question.

"Are there any particular foods that will help with those vitamin deficiencies?" she asked, drawing a sigh from Jack. Giving him a look, she said, "What? I had to ask, unless you want me to be staging sneak attacks with orange juice or banana smoothies."

Dr. Armstrong chuckled and nodded, waving a thick packet of papers. "There's a list in here, but the smoothie's not a bad idea," he told them, then, looking between Jack and Chloe, handed over the information to Chloe. "Now, I've put a referral in there for you to go see, Dr. Dominic. He's the new psych guy…I hear the last fellow left kinda suddenly, something about you people makin' him crazy."

Smirking, Chloe tried not to seem too pleased with herself, but Jack caught her look and asked, "Your work?"

"You'd think the CTU would employ people with less delicate sensibilities to help us 'overcome the strain placed upon us by our jobs'. I hadn't even been talking for five minutes and the guy burst into tears." She didn't bother to hide her disdain. Hell, she wasn't a field agent and she had no trouble coping with the magnitude of some of the things they were required to do.

With another chuckle, Armstrong offered, "Dominic put himself though med school on the GI Bill. Apparently, he was Force Recon, saw some combat, so maybe he won't flake out on you."

Jack shrugged. He still didn't like the idea of having to talk to someone about how he felt about his imprisonment. At least not a shrink, even one with combat experience. It didn't compare. "Thanks, Doc. Are we done here?"

"Just need to give you those boosters," the doctor agreed genially, motioning to the nurse, who had been hovering in the lab door with a tray covered in syringes.

The process of giving the shots was quick and fairly painless. Jack slid his right arm out of the sweatshirt, offering the limb to the doctor, who easily slid the needle into a vein, then simply pushed the contents of the full, needle less syringes through that. Another shot was quickly administered to the bicep and that was that.

Armstrong stepped back and reminded them, "Now remember, back here in three days to check those potassium levels."

Both Jack and Chloe nodded, and while Jack ducked behind a privacy screen to change, Chloe accepted the large bag of medications from the nurse. Normally, they would have gone to a pharmacy, but with all the craziness, they couldn't be sure the shelves would be stocked, Armstrong had sent someone down to the on site medical storage lockers to fill the prescriptions. They were pretty important.

The medical personnel disappeared of to wherever they disappeared to when not working on someone, leaving Chloe alone to wait for Jack. He wasn't long, appearing only a minute later, once again dressed in his boots, jeans, long sleeved, white t-shirt under blue button down and blue and white hoodie. It had been a fleeting impulse when she had been at Wal-Mart, selecting all of Jacks shirts in shades of blue, grey or white. She liked those colors on him.

"Ready to go?" he asked her and, from his desire to leave, Chloe figured he'd had enough CTU for the day. To be honest, it had been a long day for her too.

She nodded and hopped down off of the bed. He took the unwieldy bag of medication out of her arms, but she held onto the stack of papers. "We can stop at Wal-Mart on the way home, pick up the foods on the list," she told him, then briefly reflected how strangely easy it was to talk about her home as Jack's as well. Weird.

As they headed out into the hall, he made a little, disgruntled noise. "Are you sure? I mean, what if it's not open…"

"Jack, it was open the day after the bomb went off," she said, vaguely amused at his reluctance to shop. Not that she was a big fan of shopping, but men seemed genetically pre-disposed to hating it.

After brief goodbyes, they made their way though the city toward the Wal-Mart Chloe had visited only days before. Once there, Chloe briefly contemplated swinging through the men's section to harass the staff again, but thought that might be a little much for Jack. Since his initial protest, he had been quietly compliant, and was presently wandering along at her side as she pushed a cart through the food department.

By the time they finished, the cart was full of an odd mix of foods and supplements, from Wheat Bran to Cod Liver Oil to Milk Chocolate (it was on the list of Calcium rich foods!). The kid at the register gave them a funny look, but didn't comment as he rang up their purchases.

Piling into the car, they headed for Chloe's house. It had been a long day, and they had many more like it to look forward to.

TBC…….

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