12:45 a.m.
He's not one to make a habit of dwelling in the past. And when you have a past like Jack Bauer's, who would want to go there? Most everyone who had made a point to be in his life are in the past precisely because they made that mistake – being in his life, that is. And while he would love to have them around now-- in some cases to hold tighter and love deeper, in others to simply treat better and know more purposefully—they are victims of his past. Victims of his life. He hates thinking about them that way because it is chilling to come to and dwell in the realization that the only reason these people—close people that he should've been closer to—are past tense is because they chose to be near him. How the hell, then, is he still alive? And why?
He can deal with the burden of killing hundreds of bad guys, even those guys who weren't necessarily bad people they were just defiant at an inopportune time. Of course, we use "guys" loosely because you all remember her. He had even learned to write off the deaths of good guys as being necessary to achieve a greater purpose. That belief, he understood, was pushing it. Pushing that moral line, which he's not entirely sure when exactly he crossed. "Must've been sometime during one of those days I saved the world," he thought smugly and cynically. He didn't usually give himself that much credit. Mainly because good people have died helping him achieve that end. Losing those people is what hurts. The closer they are, the harder it is to lose them (the credit he's giving himself could also have something to do with the whole dying thing he's got going on for himself).
She brought up Teri. As he justified one more death of a "good guy," Renee likened her to Teri. The difference is that close factor. Marika wasn't the mother of his children. Marika hadn't died at the hands of his most trusted colleague. He had very little invested in Marika. To answer the question, though, the one about if Teri's death was necessary, if he were being honest… in a way… yes. It taught him that the less he had invested in a person, the easier it would be to lose them.
He had gotten over that glass half empty worldview. Jack took his son-in-laws lead and headed to a perfectly respectable, still high-energy job. And he met the woman who taught him to love again. It sounds incredibly sappy, he knows that. But he wants to give Audrey due credit. He cannot be with her again—he has asked too much and put her through too much risk. Even where she might disagree, he could not live with himself if something else were to happen to someone that close—someone whom he loved enough to let go.
Those are the hardest to lose. The ones written off to the past who are still alive, just not in his life. Mostly just Audrey and Kim. Audrey he can completely distance himself from, for her sake. Kim, though? She's his daughter. She has always been and will forever be the most important person in his life. It terrifies him to think of her dying for simply being his daughter. So for a long time, he's let her stay in the past. Undisturbed and unharmed. Physically, at least. But as much as he wants to let her go and for her to be happy, she is still his. To have to walk away, even if for her benefit, hurts. It makes her a living victim of his past—and those, as previously noted, are the hardest to lose. This is what he told her, in fewer words, at the hospital today… technically yesterday at this point. She told him she was sick of being that victim. The one that didn't have a choice but to be bitter and upset because Jack was trying to spare himself some pain. She understood it, of course. Understood that he was protecting her life. But being alive and being happy are two different things. She learned to be both without him, to a degree. But she was still his, and it sucks being an orphan when you dad is still alive. Worse yet, it sucks being an orphan when your dad chooses to die—the path Jack was well on his way down when she finally found him last night. They reached an agreement as they waited at the hospital in between test results— dying having been happy kicks being alive and miserable's ass.
He hates that they are gone—both Teri and Audrey. There are no ways around that. No justifications. He learned not to invest in people after Teri died mainly because he had no closure. He didn't have that second chance she told him about that night. The suddenness haunted him. He learned to love again (he begs your pardon for being cheesy again) and he felt her loss badly. But he got closer to closure that time. Painful, yes. But not as sudden and she wasn't dead. The doctors were very optimistic about Audrey's recovery, and he wanted her healing to include the wounds he had inflicted. He hates that they are gone and he isn't in love with his current life. But if he's honest about who he is today and where he has been, their deaths (used loosely in Audrey's case) have been necessary to make him the Jack Bauer that he must come to terms with being today.
He is who he is. He can be sorry for some things and he regrets a lot. But he can't apologize for being human. That is, after all, what his past says about him. There is no escaping that. As Renee's head lays on his chest in her apartment he succumbs to the knowledge that there is no escaping this, either. To try and be miserable does a disservice to the loves of his life that he has lost. It jeopardizes his opportunity to be a dad to Kim again. It requires him to forfeit another chance at love. Avoiding love is one sure way to stay miserable. And he doesn't want that.