Most people would consider a vacation their God given right after surviving nearly two years of torture in a foreign prison, but Chloe knew Jack as Not most people. He'd continued to come to CTU with her in the mornings and spent his days helping co-ordinate rescue efforts and dodging medical personnel. He never even considered taking some time off, even though Chloe wasn't sure what his exact status was at the moment.

Without Graham and his lackeys to interfere, they were operating much more efficiently. Chloe had decided she was definitely going to try to get Nick transferred to her staff and Jack had stopped twitching when Reese moved too quickly into his line of sight. Of course, it probably helped that the young woman had noted his reactions and adapted, trying not to approach him from behind and speaking to announce her presence.

It wasn't until Bill told him to take a few days that he did and Chloe had been nervous at first. A part of her was sure she'd come home from work and Jack would be gone. When she left in the morning, he had still been in bed, seemingly intent on getting some sleep, but she knew he'd soon be up and about, alone with his thoughts, which weren't often pleasant.

She arrived home that day with a more than slight sense of dread, but found her fears…kind of unfounded. Jack was still there, sitting on the couch, an episode of some DIY show playing on the TV. He seemed a little tired but relaxed and offered her a smile as she passed by to go wash up.

Pausing at the bathroom door, she gazed into the room in shock. In the time she'd lived in the house, she had never seen tile that clean and shining….hell, probably never in her whole life. She hadn't even known the grout was that bright white color, had just assumed it was the dingy, off-white it had been when she bought the place. The fixtures all sparkled and shone and there was a lingering odor of bleach and lemons hanging in the air.

Puzzled, she turned and glanced back out into the living room. She hadn't noticed before, cause it's not like the place had been a mess, but now that she knew to look the signs were clear. Light bounced off polished wood, the carpet showed signs of being freshly washed and vacuumed. Even the corners where walls met ceiling and small cobwebs had been threatening to form had been thoroughly cleaned.

She was willing to bet the kitchen had gotten the same bleaching as the bathroom. At least she knew what he'd kept himself occupied with during the day.

After washing up, she discovered her hunch had been correct. The kitchen was indeed spotless, all gleaming stainless steel and granite and tile. When she opened the fridge to grab a bottle of water, she caught a stronger whiff of the products used to clean it's interior. If she didn't know better, she'd think it was a new appliance, as it looked like it had never been used before.

She wondered if this was something to bring up to Dr. Dominic. Jack had seen the man twice and, so far, he hadn't run screaming from the building. Then again, after much, chocolate assisted prodding, Chloe had gotten Jack to admit he hadn't actually said anything to the shrink yet. The man was apparently content to let things run their course and had willingly sat in a room with Jack, simply trading stares for two hours. That alone was enough to convince Chloe that Dominic was made of much sterner stuff than the typical CTU shrinks, who still shuddered and traded terrified murmurs of, "Alpacas!" every time they saw her.

"So, Jack," she said lightly, making her way back into the living room and taking a seat on the couch beside him. "Busy day?"

He shrugged, glancing away from the screen where an excitable designer was making noise about curb appeal. Briefly, Chloe wondered if she'd come home tomorrow to find that he'd re-landscaped the entire yard. "Not really," he said, then waved a hand at their surroundings. "I hope you don't mind. I did some cleaning."

Some cleaning. That was one of Jack's understatements, like when he said he was facing some enemy fire (read into that: facing 20 hostiles with automatic weapons and possibly nuclear capabilities) or when he said "I'm fine!" in that tone ( it really meant, "I've been stabbed and or shot, possibly multiple times but I'm still on my feet and I don't think any major organs were hit!"). Her house looked like those two British ladies and their squad of cleaning gremlins from How Clean Is Your House? had blitzed it.

"I saw. Thanks," she replied simply, then had to ask, "In the bathroom, the grout…was it that color before and just dirty?"

"Grout discolors after a while," he said lightly, adding, "I bleached it."

I could tell, she thought, propping her feet up on the edge of the coffee table. "You do know that the idea of time off is to relax, right?"

He turned to her and smiled. "I am relaxed. I like having something to do though."

"Okay," she said with a shrug. "Just don't overdo it."

Jack nodded, then turned back to the TV. After a few moments of silence he said, "I'm going to replace the missing shingles on the roof tomorrow…and clean the rain gutters."

Chloe chuckled and shook her head. "Just promise me you'll spend at least one day lying on the couch watching inane TV and eating Cheetos and ice cream. Please, for the sanity of me and the rest of the worlds people who consider a vacation a reason to become human sloth's."

"Doritos instead of Cheetos and you got a deal," he teased, stretching an arm along the back of the couch so that when she tipped her head back it rested against his forearm.

With a small smile she said, "Deal." Then she closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of his arm against the back of her head. She hadn't know Jack was handy around the house, since it had never really come up in conversation before.

Now she was kind of looking forward to letting him loose on Lowes when she dragged him along with her to buy a generator.

TBC….