Classified.

That word still occupied his mind. He could see it as if it were a red word, written in bold letters, stamped onto his file, onto his whole life. It had never been clearer to him that he'd always used it to hide behind it, whenever things had become too personal, even with Teri, even in times when things hadn't been that important.

Clearance level 9. Damn it. Audrey was allowed to know things that even he had no idea of. At the zenith of his career, as he'd been CTU director, he'd had clearance level 7, well beyond the regional directors and the managers from homeland security. Audrey was only one clearance level beneath the top – level 10 – reserved for the top of the administration.

For a moment he also wondered if she was even up to this, hearing stories like his. Would he shock her beyond imagination? No, probably not. People who have reached clearance level 9 had to be used to lots of awful stories. They probably had some training. They hid behind files and facts, treating the lives of people like him as if they were just a movie or some fiction. They had to stay detached from this all – if they wouldn't, they'd never be able to do their job.

He couldn't but think of Ryan. Clearance level 8. How much had he hated this guy. Over a decade, there had been quite some occasions in which his trigger finger had itched, thinking of Ryan Chappelle. When that guy had kept information from him and his team, which would have turned out to be vital at one point – or whenever he'd played his games, to put himself into the best light while the blame would always hit someone else.

There had only been one time when Jack definitely hadn't wanted to pull the trigger.

"Can you imagine how it feels to kill an innocent man?", he silently asked Audrey.

She sat in her living room, frozen stiff. Nobody had ever asked her such a question. Of course she couldn't imagine. She didn't even want to put herself into that position, into thinking about having to kill someone who didn't deserve it – but right now her thoughts unwillingly had to come to this point. He forced her brain into the dark alleys where his was wandering.

"Think of someone you knew for a long time… someone who's an acquaintance, not a real close friend… probably even someone who you even hated somehow, but deep down you know that thy for sure don't deserve death…"

In her mind's eye, Audrey saw a bunch of people, who'd fit that description. Above all, the description fit her husband, Paul. Someone she knew for a very long time. There had been times in which she'd hated him – but she surely didn't wish him to die.

She raised her hand, as if she held some imaginary person at the other side of her living room at gunpoint.
She looked at him, the imaginary man over there, asking herself what would need to happen for her to pull the trigger. A few seconds went by. Nothing. She couldn't find anything that would ever make her do this.

"I can't imagine pulling the trigger.", she silently said.

"Imagine you have to."

"Why", she breathed.
She was still holding that imaginary person at gunpoint. No, there was nothing that could ever make her pull the trigger. She hated guns. For a short moment she thought back two weeks, when she'd held Jack's gun in her hands. Should she tell him, that she got rid of it and buried it somewhere in the sand, next to an abandoned road, just outside Hollywood hills, because she couldn't stand it one second longer to carrying an illegal gun?

For a short moment she'd held it in her hand, felt the cold black metal frame, that she usually only knew from movies. It had been heavier than expected. A martial piece of death, nothing else. She'd been glad the seconds her fingerprints were off it and it was gone, buried in the sand.

She tried to imagine it in Jack's hand, and suddenly it's him, imaginary standing her living room, holding someone at gunpoint. How long had he owned that gun, before she'd gotten rid of it? Had he ever killed anyone with it? No, let's be honest, it was not a question if, just how many, she feared, extrapolating the numbers that she'd read in his file earlier.
As she imagined him standing there, all she wanted to do was to talk him out of it.
No, let's be honest.
All she wanted to do was to run away. The simple thought of him, shooting an unarmed person, one who hadn't deserved it, scared her to death. How cold anyone do that. Point blank. As if they didn't have a heart.
Suddenly she almost couldn't believe it anymore, that she'd slept with a guy who had faced this decision over a hundred times – and who had pulled the trigger.

Jack lay at the bed in his room and stared at the ceiling. He saw the back of Ryan's head, his balding hair, the sweat pearls at his temples, when he nervously looked around. Had he tried to catch a glimpse of the men who waited in their car, a hundred yards away, to watch the scene and take his body?
The iron sights were centered on the back of the bald spot. Jack remembered the endless seconds that he had hesitated. He shouldn't have. Those were Ryan's worst moments and by being a coward, by not pulling the trigger right when he had gone to his knees, he had only prolonged that man's suffering. What had he been waiting for? Some revelation? That suddenly things would take a turn for the better? They never did. Get used to it.
He had prayed for forgiveness, back then, and he was still, even though all his life long he'd thought of himself as an agnostic or even a nihilist.
Thank God Ryan hadn't turned his head again, as he finally pulled the trigger. It was enough to have that the image of the back of his head, which had burnt itself into Jack's memory. He was glad that he hadn't had to see his face, too. Probably it got distorted by the pain. Probably not. Probably the eyes turned upwards to stare into a strange direction. He'd seen that often. During his life he had seen more than just a fair share of corpses. Way too many.

There he lay. He had lifelessly fallen forward, his face onto the tracks. Jack remembered how he put his gun back into the holster and wiped the few blood splatters, the last reminders of the living Ryan, off his hand, into his pants. It was done, but it was not over – back then he already knew it the picture would stay in his head for a long time. Probably it would never go away.

He realized that Audrey was still in the line, waiting for some kind of a reply from him. He didn't even remember her question, after having been drowned in thought so deeply, so he decided to tell her the only thing that was on his mind right now. "When that day finally was over…", he spoke, "I totally broke down. I had tried to go cold turkey a few days earlier and I even managed to get through that day somehow. But once the pressure was finally gone and I remembered everything that had happened lately…"

A shiver ran down Audrey's back as she heard him speak about crying in his car, about not being able to hold back the tears, though he tried, fighting a losing game all the way back to the CTU headquarters. He told her about the little detour that he made on the way back, to buy a little vial with the liquid that was the only thing that could bring him salvation. He couldn't go through these doors right then. He was afraid something would trigger him again and he'd not be strong enough to hold back the tears, not be able to say one word at all or move. What then? Break down in front of everybody? No. Finding an excuse to hide somewhere and wait it out? He wasn't strong enough to stick to his previous plan of going cold turkey, even though he'd already managed to go without, for two days. A small dose knocked him out for a few minutes. It was enough to patch him back up just that much that he could wipe away the tears and walk back into CTU without throwing the gun and his badge onto the table and quit.

"I couldn't stand to think back. I killed an innocent man that day. I hacked my partner's arm off. The six months before that I lived the life of a criminal, and I did everything that comes with it. It's hard to face that sober."

Audrey turned her head sideways and looked at the imaginary picture again, that her mind had drawn earlier, of him, standing in her room, holding somebody at gunpoint. She imagined him pulling the trigger.
All it left was an image of a man who couldn't believe what he'd done when he stared at the result of his actions, still over the iron sights of his weapon.

"How did you plan to get out of this, Jack?", she silently asked him. "You couldn't stay on drugs forever."

"I know.", he sighed, "But… it is the only thing that can make it better. At least for a few minutes."

"And then?"

"Then it comes back even worse. Everything is still unchanged. And on top of that, you realize that you're a fuckin' junkie… and that every effort you ever took to get away from it is null and void. You're back at step zero again."

After a while, he added: "When you realize what you've become." He longed for a shot, more than ever. Grab a needle, force it into his vein and end that conversation.

"Don't be so hard on yourself."

"I thought you wanted me to be honest." It wouldn't be like hanging up the phone. If he hung up, the memories would still be there, maybe even worse than before, after having talked about them and having relived them.

"Jack…", Audrey started, but she didn't know how to continue. What should she say to him? She'd never been in that position before and she doubted that this would ever happen again.

"What is it, Audrey?", he asked, after she didn't continue. "Did I shock you that much?"

"No, you didn't.", she lied.

"Be honest."

"I've just never been in that position before, Jack."

"You gave me your card, half a year ago."

"I remember." As she had given him her card, seven months ago at DoD, she had told him to call her and that she'd listen. Mighty naïve, she had to admit now, to think that she'd be able to change anything for good. He needed a trained psychologist, who'd go to the bottom of his doubts and all the self-destructive tendencies.

"I didn't want to use it… because I didn't want to put you in that position."

"Into what position?"

"The one you were talking about. To have to listen to all that shit."

Audrey knew what she meant. She was the one listening to all his sorrows. He was pouring his heart out, sharing his most depressing thoughts and by listening, she unwillingly got dragged into his sorrows, too. It affected the ways she thought about him. Earlier he had said that she'd think less of him. Did she?
No, she just though differently.
He seemed like he hated to share his thoughts in that way. Only now, as he had hit rock bottom, he did it.
Was it even good that he did? She couldn't change a thing.

"Did it get better, when you talked about things like that?"

"Who should I have talked to?"

"I don't know. There must have been someone. Your wife?"

"Teri? No." It was an awful thought of telling Teri the truth. He had lied to her, almost all of the eighteen years they had spent together. Audrey asked him if he had ever had any friends who he would honestly talk to.

Only one name crossed Jack's mind: Nina.
That was why he had fallen for that bitch. She had used this, exactly this, to lure him into her claws.
But he wasn't ready to go down that road. The thought of killing Ryan was enough. The memories of his time spent with Ramon or of driving to that one part of the city, where he'd buy what he so desperately needed. The times spent in the car, driving aimlessly through the night, looking for the dealer, if his regular one wasn't around. The tremors of going cold turkey and the primal urge of barely hiding the car round some corner to get a shot right then, because the way back home would have been too long to bear.
Don't add Nina to that pile of memories. There's enough shit to bury her existence and keep the mind occupied with something else. That was one thing he couldn't tell Audrey about.

She was really doing her best in being there for him.

Was she luring him into her claws, too? Was that the same thing as with Nina? Nip it in the bud!

Damn it. No. This is different. Audrey wasn't Nina. How could he ever compare these two. She was way above his level already and she would never get anything out of this situation. Why was she doing this at all?

She was the best thing that happened to him lately. How dare he say her name in the same sentence as Nina's.

"I better hang up now.", he said, "and not ruin all of your evening."

Audrey sensed the sudden change in his voice. He'd somehow come to a point where talking was so uncomfortable that he couldn't continue.
She wouldn't force him to, even though she would have been eager to find out why his mood had changed so suddenly.

"Okay.", she silently said.

"Thanks, Audrey."

Beep. Beep. Beep. She sat alone in her living room again. He had just hung up. No goodbye, no polite phrases. It was a hurried exit to evade an unbearable situation.
She tried to put herself in his position. He was bogging down, and he couldn't pull himself out of it. If she were in his position…. she'd probably long for a shot now, too, more than ever.

She looked at the phone in her hands.

Actually, she wanted to call him back.

No, let him go. Don't push it, or he's never going to pick up the phone again, Audrey told herself.

She got up from and placed the phone on the table, making sure it wasn't mute. No, he wouldn't call anyway. Just in case.

No, of course he didn't call.