PART 1: A Doll's House

Go ask the youngest angel,
She will say with 'bated breath,
"By the doors of Mary's garden
Are the spirits, Love and Death."

-Yeats, "Love and Death"

I.

"I was married. She died last year."

"Oh," she says, because there isn't much she can say to that. "I'm sorry."

He says nothing. She stares at his profile, then at her hands that are folded on her lap. She has met him less than an hour ago, but she's already learned that Agent Jack Bauer does not talk much. He volunteered this little tidbit of information on his marriage status only because she's overheard his conversation about his daughter, who is apparently in some trouble. She understands his reticence and apparent absence of visible emotions; he's on the mission to save everyone in this city of angels, and it can't be easy.

But she still wonders if this man ever smiles. Or has any reasons to.

For the rest of the trip to the nearest mosque, where she would have to identify Syed Ali, she looks out the window and worries and hopes. Worries about her little sister, who, no doubt, would be crying her heart out at this very moment, her dad at CTU, and Reza, who might turn out to be involved in this whole mess. Hopes that the bomb will be found (Please, she closes her eyes), that she will see her family again, that there will be a smile on Marie's face when she sees her again.

Kate does not think about the two bodies she's seen today.

All the while, her ear bleeds. She holds onto the handkerchief Agent Bauer gave her.

It's strained in crimson. She doesn't notice.

II.

"I thought I knew my own sister."

"Sometimes we don't really know anyone," he says, his eyes on the road and voice infinitely tired. He's speaking from a direct experience, she can tell, and she doesn't ask about it, mainly because they can't possibly be exchanging their life stories while they're pursuing her sister and a nuclear bomb that are both loose in the city. But soon after, she wishes she had.

Because, soon after, she is standing on that wretched airfield, staring as the plane that contains the two things that have been governing her life for the last hours, the nuclear bomb and Jack Bauer, takes off.

It's not possible, she thinks. It's not possible that the man who's saved her life and possibly many other people is going to die because of all these things that are wrong with this world, because of Marie.

This does not make sense.

Today is her sister's wedding.

Her father works for the CIA.

There is a nuclear bomb in the city.

Marie killed Reza.

Marie (her finger on the trigger, the eyes cold and sharp and that can't be her sister who's cried her heart out when Kitty the hamster died, can it? Can it?) was going to kill her.

And Marie, her precious sister who has been the very center of Kate's life for the last 29 years, is going to be the one of the people who will kill this man.

Kate still remembers Marie's bright, dazzling smile from that morning.

III.

Her bedroom floor is covered with mudded footprints. She doesn't sigh. She doesn't necessarily think of money (vacuuming alone will be how much? The blood on the entrance will never be washed out completely) that this will inevitably cost her. She doesn't think of Jack, who's left her house with haste at another emergency that needs his attention.

Finally someone at CTU picks up the phone. Tony Almeida informs her that her father's been released and there's no need for her to return to CTU right away. The cops Jack left to guard her house are needed elsewhere, and she sends them away. She's not particularly worried about her safety at the moment. She doesn't keep track just how many times someone pointed a gun at her today with every intention of using it.

She's going to take a long bath and sleep for days, and if someone was to shoot her dead on her very bed, she doesn't think she will care all that much.

She isn't that afraid to use the bathroom which was, just an hour ago, a place for gunshots and negotiations. She fills the tub with hot water. Bubbles rise up and the lavender scent relaxes the air. When she melts into the water, she closes her eyes and thinks she can die right now without a regret.

When she opens her eyes again, the sky through the window is on the lighter side of indigo, and the morning slips into her bathroom. The nightmare of yesterday is over along with the coming of morning, she thinks. It's over.

There are bullet holes on the wooden door of the bathroom. The faint light through the glasses flickers and stops on her collection of bath oils, most of which were contributed by Marie. The one she used tonight was the last Christmas gift from Marie and Reza. She realizes, just then, just how many pieces of memories she is surrounded with. The towel sets she bought with Marie a month ago on a shopping spree. The candleholders, the frames, the doormat, the slippers and the tiles. She and Marie designed the entire decoration.

Marie was here when she first saw this house. "It's perfect, Katie," Marie told her, and they squealed and giggled together. Kate smiled broadly and placed a kiss on her sister's forehead. A bright summer day, and her sister glittered.

Kate suddenly notes she's afraid to realize any more memories, the memories behind those smiles.

Oh, the smiles. The smiles that have been lies.

She doesn't want to be here any more.

So, when Jack Bauer calls her a few minutes later with a frantic voice, she volunteers to pick up Kim and gets up from the cool water.

IV.

She buys flowers early in the morning, returns home with newspapers and bagels. She skillfully avoids the people from the media waiting to talk to the family of Marie Warner; she's mastered the method after weeks of hassles.

There are significantly fewer reporters today, she notes. It's probably because they're now more interested in the President's recovery from the poison than now-the-old-news nuclear bomb. The name Jack Bauer is, however, still popular and uttered occasionally at the news. She's glad. He has earned all the attentions he gets with his blood and life. She watches with deep interest and remembrance whenever the official picture of Jack as the hero who saved the country from the bomb and the President from the poison flashes across the screen. She hopes he's doing well.

At work, she reassures the board members that the stock value of Warner International Cooperation will not fall. The news has gone out, the people who have known Marie for her bright smile and highlighted hair that stood out in every company party try to hide their astonishment. No one asks why Bob Warner isn't present in this meeting. For the last couple of weeks, Kate Warner has taken over the role of the CEO who is in the process of grieving the loss of his daughter. The daughter who's still alive and well in this world except for her mass-murdering rage.

She went to Reza's funeral without her father. Dad would not face Reza's parents, and she had, alone, swallowing guilt and loss, without avoiding the hateful looks she received in Marie's place. She did all this to build up her family that was once again falling apart. This is familiar. She has done this before, when her mother passed away and Marie was lost. Kate told herself that it was her responsibility to fill the cracks of her house and put things back together. It was her duty. And she thought she'd succeeded. Only, she hadn't.

So, this routine is indeed familiar. As is guilt.

Guilt is always a familiar creature.

V.

She's moved back to the mansion to be with her father. Every afternoon after work, she enters the library with a cup of coffee and some food, finds her dad sitting on the far back sofa, his eyes intent on the screen. There are albums everywhere on the desk and there's absolutely no room for anything else. She files up one folder against another, changes the cold coffee in front of him with the new cup she's brought in. This is the routine.

She squeezes his hand tightly once and feels the lines of his hands and his face. She takes in his shape once more and glances at the screen which replays the scenes of the day before the wedding. The reception with all the extravagances one family could possibly manage. Marie is wearing a white sundress with a bright auburn lipstick. Reza laughs somewhere off-screen. Marie whispers something to Kate--who is then trying to juggle the tasks of rescheduling the next board meeting, checking the lists of caterers, calling in the flower arrangement to be examined again, and refitting her bridesmaid dress. Kate cannot remember what Marie has said then, but she does remember the brightness that seems to glitter all around her little sister for the entire day. Marie has been her father's little angel and Kate's little sister who's always in need of the older sister.

Watching her father's self-torment session of the home videos, she feels her chest twists in knots. Her father is, at least for a while, willing to live here forever just to be in the perfect version of his life. She is willing to let him. Just for a while.

Marie might have been a natural born actress, but everyone in this family is a master in the world of self-deception.

She closes the door.

There is no smile to be found in this house. Not any more.

She sits on one of many chairs in the dinning room, alone.

PART 2: The End of Sisyphus

Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.

-Sophocles

I.

Some people end up losing everything. They go down all the way. No matter how hard they try.

That is usually his case.

It occurs to him that this time, it might be different. He has George Mason to thank for this moment when he's breathing the night air again, when he's back to the familiar ground of CTU, when he's once again looking to talk to Kim, when he's again arguing with Tony over procedural matters and Michelle's theory on the Cypress recording. The bomb has gone off, but they have no one except Mason to grieve for, and Jack is grateful. He can hold fast onto the belief that this time, he might not go down at all. Because now he's given a second chance.

That belief, however, begins to fade as the blood of Syed Ali stains his shirt. It fades a little bit more once he realizes that he might have to do this, that he might not see Kim right away. It completely disappears with the arrival of this phone call.

"What do you want?"

"Kate Warner."

Instantly Jack thinks of the frail woman and her relieved smile on her face that had only shown frowns and tears for the entire day.

"Why? Why do you want her?"

Today he's watched her life breaking down into pieces, just like his has once. He doesn't want something like that to happen to anyone.

But then it's never his choice, is it?

"You gave me your word," she tells him, her eyes hurt, angry, and afraid as Wallace reaches to grab her arm, to snatch her away for his own use.

He has given her his word, and he will try everything humanly possible to keep her safe, but he's afraid that between her life and every person in the three countries, hers weighs lighter. Much, much lighter.

The choice has already been made.

How much lower does he go down? It's just like every other time.

All the way.

II.

His heart has stopped once half an hour ago. It almost stops again when he sees the body in the phone booth. Before he reaches Yusuf, it occurs to him that the agent who's been on his side when no other agent was might just be dying.

And he does die, right in front of his eyes.

Just how he drags out her address from his still-mingled brain is hazy. The entire drive to her house is hazier. He does get there, though, and he hears loud gunshots coming from a house. Always owing to a nick of time, he arrives just when a man is pointing a gun at her head.

When it's over, her house is in ruins after the three bastards who killed Yusuf out of pure nonsense hatred roamed about in it. She offers him her computer to connect with CTU, looking small and fragile and lost in her own house. Her eyes are still out of focus, every step she takes fraught with daze.

"Yusuf," she suddenly says, straightening up and reaching to touch his arm, "My god, Yusuf's still in the park. How could I have forgotten? They got him pretty bad. He was bleeding a lot when I last saw him. We need to get him to the hospital and--" she stops at his look. Her hysteria dies out, and her sober expression turns into the one of fear. "Wait, how did you know where to find me?"

He does not really have to tell her. She sees it all.

Seconds later, tears well up in her eyes and she turns away. She excuses herself to the kitchen. He doesn't hear the sound of her tears, but it's still there.

He keeps at the computer station, patiently waiting for Michelle's assessment of the chip. Jack Bauer does not have any time, even just a little to mourn this terrible waste of another life, until he can be sure that everyone else has been saved.

Another hour, another loss.

A good man died today, many good men died today, and he'd be damned if he can ever remember them all.

III.

Gunshots, gunshots everywhere. They're louder than the sound of his heart that seems to stop one too many times, and quieter than the sound of his blood sipping out.

The sky is blue, too blue for this day of bloodbath, and he looks upon it with a certain amount of hatred. It's looking down at him with indifference.

"This is the last time, Jack." His target stands across the field, less than ten feet away from him. Her M-16 is well armed and well aimed.

Of course. One can expect nothing less from Nina. She can do much more than just escaping the custody and the lifetime of imprisonment. She can also manipulate and be a part of the bombing on LA and the plan to assassinate the president. She can also survive the full frontal attack from what's left of CTU and all the SWAT teams available in the area on the mission to capture the ones who engineered the attack on the President.

On the other hand, Jack cannot even complete a simple task of standing up. He feels his every bone that seems to be disconnected from his body. His body that's been so obedient to his will, even when he pushes it to the last second, now refuses to work any more. Well, he can't blame it. He wouldn't mind lying around here for a little bit more. Maybe for eternity.

But it's never his choice.

"That's too bad," he tells her, slowly dragging his body up, up, up, "I was getting to enjoy our brief encounters."

There're no holes to be found in her defense posture. She will shoot once he makes any kind of move. He's out of bullets. This whole situation is quite disturbingly familiar.

It's difficult to breathe but he does anyway. He straightens up. The weapon in Nina's hands clicks with a metallic cling.

"Hand me the antidote," he demands. He can almost feel the wary smile on his face.

"You must be out of your mind," Nina snaps once she recovers from her amazement at his seemingly pointless hubris.

"It's my last warning. Hand me the antidote."

She shakes her head, her face laced with sarcastic smile. "It's been good knowing you, Jack. I think I'll miss you."

"Nina," he says, for the last time, just for the sake of it, "Why? Why do you do it?"

Her tight grip on the weapon wavers, but only slightly. Her expression hardens. "If you still have to ask that question, you still don't know me at all."

He meets her eyes with something more than and less than hatred. "No, I don't. And I never will."

"Don't be so sure, Jack. You're not so Snow White yourself."

"No, I know I never will."

There's a brief hint of something -- disappointment? -- that flickers by in her eyes before she tightens her grip on the trigger. "Goodbye, Jack."

Before she triggers, another shot fires. When she falls, he doesn't blink. He witnesses, with his wide often, the fall of his wife and many others' murderer.

Tony Almeida appears from behind the trees, nodding at Jack once. His face is stoical but his dark eyes are bare and raw. He walks over, looks down at the woman who he's once loved, and closes her eyes that are wide open.

Why? Just why?

There will be no answer to that question. It's over.

Jack feels his legs collapsing under him, and he imagines about forever and beyond. He almost gives into its comfort that he's experienced many times before, that he's been able to resist every time, when Tony reaches for him.

"Jack!"

He cannot die. Not now. Not when he's promised Kim that he would come back. But one too many tears have fallen in the course of his life, and he's tired. Tired beyond his life.

Tears leave trails sharper than bullets.

IV.

George Mason's funeral is necessarily held a little later than it normally would be. CTU is still broken, the assessment on the collateral damages still tiding in and out. The President is recovering rapidly, but the poison had near fatal effect. Even if he's received the cure in time (thanks to CTU and everyone's fine work, according to Chappelle; thanks to Tony Almeida and Jack Bauer, according to David Palmer), he has been warned by doctors to stay put at Camp Davis for several more weeks.

However, David Palmer, along with all the cabinet members of his government, shows up at the funeral. He shakes hands with everyone present (along with the joke that no, he isn't wearing any poisonous skin so no one's going to die here), gives hell of an eulogy for Mason, and, upon seeing Jack, rushes over to him with the speed that would put even Jack in shame. They hug.

"Have you forgiven yourself yet, Jack?" David Palmer's deep voice asks causally as they walk in the cemetery, followed by the groups of Secret Service and the funeral attendants.

There are many ways to answer that question. Not all of them require honesty. But he trusts his man in front of him, his President, and if no one else, President Palmer deserves an honest answer.

"I'm working on it," Jack answers, watching the bright shade of his daughter's hair. Kim waves at him. Even after another terrible day, she keeps up with him. Her words are still the same.

I'll take care of you, Dad.

But this is a cemetery, where many ghosts are buried to be remembered in the middle of sleepless nights.

He smiles at her daughter once again and doesn't think he deserves this at all.

V.

"Sorry, but I can't make it today. Maybe you should go with that lady instead," his daughter tells him one morning, her casual voice loud and bright and probing at the same time, "Kate, wasn't it? Kate Warner."

He keeps his eyes on the newspaper and his fingers around the spoon. The cereal suddenly tastes less than it already is. "Are you trying to ditch your Old Man already?" he feigns a light tone and fails to keep his expression steady.

"No use trying to fall back on that old guilt trip thing, Dad, and definitely no use in trying to change the topic. You do remember how to ask a girl out, right?" Kim teases, helpfully pouring more milk into his bowl and generally fussing about in the kitchen like she does every morning. "Surely it hasn't been *that* long, Dad."

He appreciates her fake enthusiasm and visible effort to push away her discomfort at the idea of her dad dating, or even just trying to date. But just because the world is no longer a void that it has been for a long while, it does not mean he's ready to experience all the happiness that people say he deserves and he's not sure he does.

"I don't think I need you to play matchmaker for me, Sweetheart," he chides her playfully.

She stops, cutting off the pleasant rhythm of her motions and turning to face him, fully. She is silent for a moment, and he isn't sure if he wants to do this. He isn't sure if he's ready.

"It's time for us to stop grieving," she tells him, her voice barely a whisper, "Maybe this moving on business takes some initiatives on our part. On *your* part, Dad."

He cannot find any words that can matter, that would matter. He meets her blue eyes that are the same as the ones he sees on the mirror every morning. This is his daughter. His.

"I love you no matter what. You know that, right?" she asks, somehow managing to look so young and vulnerable, not because she is but because she's afraid that he might not know how much she loves him. This is his daughter. This is his life.

He takes her into his arms. She's careful not to touch his injured arm, but she leans on his good shoulder. His shirtsleeve becomes slightly wet from the tears falling from her eyes. He wipes them away. She smiles through her tears.

"I love you, Dad."

"I love you, too, Sweetheart."

So, that's that.

And that is why he is here, now.

He sits behind the wheel, looking out the window to see the large mansion in front of his car. Then he stares down at the flowers on the passenger seat, bemused. So this is what people do, buying flowers for other people, the people they care about. The idea of this plain gesture seems so alien that he wonders how far he's strayed away from the normalcy of...anything.

So, he is here.

PART 3: Tomorrow

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time

-Shakespeare, Macbeth.

On her mother's old desk that has been kept for the purely sentimental and not at all pragmatic reason, several photo frames sit with dust liberally blanketing the surfaces. She stares, caressing the cold glass surfaces that present nothing but memories. On the other side are folders and sheets of paperwork that she isn't so willing to read. The files all have frightening materials on the law procedures, arrest warrants, and court procedurals and the name Marie Warner is in all of them.

The trial is to going to be soon, and she isn't ready.

When she looks at the opposite side of the desk, there they are, the photos of her family with brilliant smiles that include not a single genuine emotion. Marie, with whatever the thoughts Kate cannot understand. Dad with the pretension of happiness. And Kate.

She with the suffocating sense of responsibilities that she's supposed to feel happy. Because this is her life, perfect. As long as others are happy.

It hasn't always been fake. There have been moments, mostly before Mom passed away. But all she can remember now are the smiles that meant nothing.

"Miss Warner, you have a visitor."

She turns around, still dazed with reverie, and she doesn't really understand what she sees for a moment. Jack Bauer is standing at her hallway in a broad daylight. And there're no gunshots to be heard or the lives to be endangered.

"Jack," she greets him, remembering her manners and feeling awkward, half out of surprise and half out of a mixture of emotions she doesn't particularly want to focus on right now. Somehow the name Jack doesn't roll out well from her tongue; this is no longer that crazy day when she said his name like a freepass, an entitlement.

"Kate," he says. There is a small but pleasant smile on his face. He's looking well. More than just well for a person who's been shot at, stabbed at, and God knows what else. Slowly and with just about the same amount of awkward grace, he steps forward. In his hands are...flowers. "Here."

She takes them, grateful if not overly self-conscious. She leads him into the living room, trying to make a small talk and cannot think of any starters. Normal people would ask how-are-you's and how-is-it-going's, but they're both aware things might not be going so well on each end.

"I understand you came to visit me in the hospital," Jack begins first, his voice carefully friendly.

A little relaxed now, she smiles. "I did, and I was told you didn't stay in bed for long, much to the doctors' dismay." A heart attack or two cannot get in the way of Jack Bauer, she's learned it on that fateful day. And that's good, because he saves people a lot that way, including their president. "How's the President?"

"He's doing well. We're guessing he'll come back from Camp Davis in a few days."

She nods, trusting his connection with the President more than the media that seems to change President Palmer's condition at every second anywhere from light to life-threatening. "Are you back at CTU now?"

"I am, but on a sick leave. Kim insisted on it."

At that, they both smile. The idea of Jack on a sick leave is too ironic to process without any smile.

"I heard what you've been doing for Yusuf's family," he says, when the teas come out and they're properly sitting on the sofa. "They're really thankful for your help."

She doesn't really want to talk about it. Not really. But this is Jack Bauer. He deserves so many things that she can and can't offer. "Yusuf saved my life. He saved all of us. His family wanted nothing from me except my thanks, but it's the least I could do." She smiles even more self-consciously when Jack's blue eyes are focused on hers. "His sister's coming to America, Stanford University, next year. I'm supposed to give her pointers when she comes to live with me."

He says things in appreciation, and they exchange this and that of their respective lives. This is mundane, different, and oddly uncomfortable, if only because there are not chasing, chased, or under any death threats. This quiet moment in the silence is disconcerting, out of place, and as much as she might have wanted to see him, she isn't sure what she can do, what she is supposed to do. Her life has been a line of clearly defined rules and roles, and whenever this man comes into her life, they're immediately out of picture. This is one feeling she isn't used to dealing with.

When she notices he's observing her family photos on the side table, she swallows a bitter smile and reaches for one of them. It's of Marie, when she was just entering the second grade and wearing a pink tutu.

"One time, when she was about nine, Marie wanted the same doll that a friend of hers had. I told her she had many other dolls to play with. She listened for a moment, then went to her room and threw out all other dolls that she had. Dad came to the room and told me to get her the doll. So, I did." She turns away from the glittering glass surface of the frame. "I would give everything to have done things differently back then."

He glances at the photo once, takes it from her and puts it down on the table again. "Kate," he speaks in the voice that she remembers hearing the very first time she met him, "you saved millions of lives."

"You did, Jack. I did...nothing. Nothing for my sister, nothing for the people I wanted to save. I don't blame myself for what Marie did, but I do know it would've gone differently if I noticed that everything wasn't all right. It's my failure, and I accept it."

He's watching her, and she stares at her hands folded on her lap. It has been like this, once. She has only stared at her hands and sat beside him while he's gone making a difference.

"Kate."

His hand is on her arm, and she faces him with a brief moment of wonderment. On that crazy day, his hand on her arm has been a comforting, warm presence that she unconsciously accepted without a question.

"My daughter told me that she's letting go of the past. That we're letting it go, together. Maybe you should, too."

She would like to, she really does, but she doesn't know how. "I guess we all should."

She tries to smile reassuringly. It doesn't come out right. Especially when his hand on her arm retreats, leaving her without the warmth it carries.

"I have to tell you why I'm here," Jack speaks suddenly, breaking the silence that's slowly settling between them.

She has guessed that this visit probably has something to do the debriefings at CTU, maybe even with the persecution proceedings. She's been told that they would need her as a witness on many trials that were to come. "What is it?" she asks, fighting the odd sense of disappointment that seems to pervade her mind at the idea that he's here only because of his job.

"It's my daughter."

She's suddenly worried. "What about Kim? Is she okay?"

"She's fine." His voice is, like always, comforting and full of promises. "She and I set a plan to spend every Tuesday together. We're supposed to grab something to eat and watch a movie," he says, his tone suggesting that a movie and pizza night is such a foreign idea that he cannot speak of it without a hint of embarrassment. "Today, though, she has a school interview, and I'm left alone. I was hoping if you'd accompany me."

He smiles.

She remembers thinking that he doesn't smile much.

But when he does smile, it is warm. And real.

"I'm sorry," he tells her.

Jack Bauer, of all people, has nothing to apologize to her. "Whatever for?"

"For not realizing sooner that you may need this as much as I do, if not more. For...not coming by earlier."

For a moment, she's rendered speechless.

And for no reason at all, she fights the tears that begin to overwhelm her.

"Will you come?" he asks, and in his voice there is something that she's never thought she'd hear from him, a sense of nervous hesitance, a sense of anxiety that seems to contradict his image as a confident, determined hero.

She looks briefly around the empty hall, with the fleeting memories of the smiles that have never been real. She needed Marie to smile for her to be happy. She needed Dad to smile for her to be happy.

She has lived in a doll's house with fake smiles that meant nothing. Maybe this is her time to build her own life with real smiles.

She turns to Jack Bauer, the man with so many strengths and weaknesses, the man who does not trust very many people. The man with a rather shy, sincere, smile.

"I would love to," she tells him.

When she leaves the house with Jack, she smiles.

She is happy.

THE END

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