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Status: Completed
Category: Angst, General,
Pairings:Jack/Chloe
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None really.
Season/Sequel: Season five or season six.
Summary: He may have been with other women, but in the end he always came back to her.
Author's Notes: Ficathon Day 5 prompt -stray & illusion.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable characters and places are the property of
24 and The Fox Network. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment
not monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was
intended. Previously unrecognised characters and places, and this story, are
copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
He may have been with other women, but in the end he always came back to her. It didn’t matter how beautiful or statuesque these women were, or how many she always managed to feel inadequate standing next to them. His internal compass invariably pointed in her direction. It was a truth they’d accepted, a strange truth. He may have wandered to other women, had relationships with them, but when it really mattered, she was the only one he could trust, the only one he’d ever risk leaving death for. His guiding light. No matter how far strayed off course, or how his world tilted off its normal axis, she was there. His constant, his compass, his True North. With one call she guided him back to the right path, helping with clear, precise instruction and information.
CTU was empty apart from the two of them. He watched her at her desk, the lines of tiredness appearing on her face and her eyes drooping from exhaustion. Slowly, she got up and tidied up the last of her files sitting there.
“Let me take care of you.”
She spun around, still unable to get used to his ability to come up behind her undetected. “Jack. I’m fine,” she brushed him off, “if terrorists can take a break for the next forty eight hours my brutal honesty will be back to its embarrassing self in no time.”
She turned away but he caught one of her hands, and her attention. He raised her hand and studied it. Her long, thin fingers were red and the skin course from hours of typing and hitting keys. Her nails were broken either by accident or being bitten.
But he loved these fingers. These fingers that had saved his life more times than any others pulling a trigger. He couldn’t imagine Audrey ever having such rough hands or imperfect nails, but then again, Audrey would never dream of spending twenty four hours straight behind a desk guiding twelve different CTU teams in three separate locations, while making sure they all had the necessary the info and schematics needed to achieve their objective and get out of there alive.
He raised those delicate digits to his lips and kissed every single one of them. He couldn’t begin to show his appreciation for them, for her. But it was a start.
“Let me take care of you.” He repeated, his voice lowering seductively.
Her eyes widened and a rosy flush ran from her neck to her cheeks, splashing colour on her otherwise pale skin.
”Jack, you’ve had a rough day, are you sure about this? Do you know what you’re saying?”
He let his other hand trace the curve of her cheek, his eyes softening as he memorised every feature on her face.
“I love you, Chloe,” he said quietly, simply.
And it was true. Only she could see past the illusion that had been perpetuated by those around him. They had given him the cloak of super human strength, made him a marvel throughout the agency. He was treated like some kind of other worldly creatures by those who had only heard the tales of Jack Bauer, and even by some who did know him. They created a fantasy, a legend that he could watch people around him die, and feel nothing. Or at least work on through it. They had built him up and he struggled to live up to those expectations.
But she saw past all that, saw the scared, vulnerable man inside. Just as he could see past the indifferent, snarky, veils of her disguise to the caring, fearful woman, who worried about her friends, her family and even those innocent people she didn’t know. Who battled on and risked her job and her life to do things that went may be considered illegal. And she did them, not because Jack would ask it of her, but because she knew it was the right thing to do. And Chloe always did the right thing.
He could feel her fingers shaking beneath his own and squeezed gently, moving his thumb across the back of her knuckles.
“OK,” she said at last, her voice shaking but there. “Let’s go home then.”
He smiled and let her lead him home, just as she had always done.
~Finis~
Copyright © 2007, held by the author.
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