Interlude: What were the minions thinking?
After the complete cluster fuck of the past several weeks, the staff of the New York branch of the CTU was as close to burnt out as they could be without actively loosing their minds. Hastings had, in a magnanimous gesture, arranged for vetted temps to watch the office to allow his people a few days of down time to recover, lick their wounds and generally unclench.
The majority of field agents were injured in one way or another, exhausted and strung out on stimulants to a point that could not be healthy. The technical and support staff, while a lot less likely to be bullet riddled, stabbed or concussed, were as dead on their feet, vision blurred from staring at their computer screens for days on end.
Brian Hastings looked around the comm center at the few Techs who were diligently backing up their systems and information in preparation for a few days rest. Nick Mankuba and Sophie Lennon were bent over their computers, usual neat business casual wear traded in for jeans and hoodies. Ron Dactylos looked to be dozing in his seat, while Trina Cooper and Milton Perlmutter were replacing damaged motherboards.
The entire room smelled like sweat, stale coffee and over loaded circuit boards. Not too long ago jack had stalked through, making a bee line for his office. No way was Hasting gonna get involved with that train wreck waiting to happen. He had a theory that one day, Bauer was just going to explode. Literally. Like all the injuries and near death experiences in his life might have built up and eventually he'd just blow.
Brian knew it wasn't physically possible, but he figured if anyone could do it, it would be Jack.
So, like the rest of the staff with common sense, he decided to leave it alone for now. Dactylos didn't so much as twitch, while Cooper and Perlmutter ducked down behind their desks. Nick and Sophie froze, like they were trying to avoid the notice of a T-Rex, and Hastings pretended to be busy with an empty folder until Bauer was safely behind closed doors.
Crisis momentarily averted, they all went about their respective jobs, until Chloe O'Brien appeared. No one quite had a handle on the relationship between the quirky tech and force of nature field agent. They just knew Jack and Chloe were a team. Jack was never overtly hostile to Chloe and she returned the favor, were even quite friendly. Everyone was fairly sure they only played by CTU rules…well, pretended to at least, because it was convenient for them to do so. Otherwise, they were a rogue force.
Which was why she didn't seem to think twice before passing them and barging into Jack's office unannounced, pulling the door closed behind her.
For a moment, everyone was silent, before Sophie's soft voice echoed in the cavernous room. "She's a brave woman."
"True," Nick said, shaking his head. "Into the lion's den without any hesitation."
Peace again, before the was a muffled crash from the office, like a coffee mug shattering, then the sounds of some furniture banging around. All heads, even Dactylos, turned to regard the office. Then, almost as one, they turned to look at Hastings, who said, "So a coffee cup fell. No reason to….:"
He was interrupted by another thump and some groaning.
"Huh, it happened. He's snapped and is killing her," Perlmutter said, looking up at the office door, eyes focused on the door jam as though expecting blood to start leaking out.
Cooper shifted nervously. "Should we do something?"
"You wanna die too?" Dactylos asked as Hastings reached for a phone to call security.
"No," Cooper said, but was interrupted by a new voice.
"Um, guys," Jo Reese had entered comms, leaning heavily on a pair of crutches. "Those aren't I'm being killed noises."
Hastings hung up the phone. "Then what…Oh. OH! In the office?"
"OH!"
"Must go. Far away. NOW!"
"Yeah I got stuff to do that isn't here..."
"Huh…"
"Good night, Sir."
The five techs were packed and out of the room faster than Brian had ever seen any of them move. Which seemed to be a good thing, as the noises from the office were getting louder and more explicit. He did sigh, however, as he noted at least four of them had their phones out and were rapidly texting. The whole staff would know about this before it was over.
He looked over at Reese, who was swinging herself into a seat by a monitor, propping her wounded leg up on a spare chair. She pulled and Ipod and ear buds from her pocket and Hastings jumped at the chance. "I have de-briefings to do down in Medical. Can you keep an eye on things up here until the next shift of temps show?"
"Yes, sir," she said, stuffing the tiny speakers into her ears to drown out the sounds filtering out form the office.
Thanking whatever Gods listened to beleaguered administrators, Hastings left the comms center, wishing he could bleach his brain. There were some things even the director of an intelligence agency did not need to know!
After what seemed like a decent amount of time, given their relative levels of exhaustion, Jo Reese pulled an ear bud from her ear and listened intently. No longer hearing the sounds of two stressed people engaging in enthusiastic office sex, she gave a nod and pushed up and out of her chair.
Hobbling to the door, she listened again and, hearing nothing, raised her hand to deliver two sharp blows to the wood.
"Look, no one cares what's going on in there, but the room is not sound proof and you've traumatized the minions." It wasn't that no one cared, but no one would dare do anything. He was Jack Fucking Bauer. The dude terrorists checked in their closets for at night instead of the boogeyman. "They've all fled and Hastings is hiding out in Medical, supposedly debriefing agents, but he's not fooling anyone. Just an FYI."
After a moment, jack replied, "Thanks for the info, Jo."
"No problem," she shouted, then nodded at the newly arriving support personnel. "See ya tomorrow and, may I say, about damn time!"
She chuckled as she maneuvered herself away on the crutches. Medical claimed she'd be on them for a week until the skin had a chance to knit back together, at least partially. Maybe she'd head down to Medical, harass them a little, see if she could get that sentence reduced.
After all, it would be hard to chase terrorists around with crutches….though she could whack them with one.
