Living
With It
by Starfirenz
Rating - Hmmmm... not sure - PG13 to be
safe?
Pairing - Jack/Teri.
Warnings - Roundabout, off-screen, blink-and-you'll-miss-it
allusion to rape. Angst galore. Possible spoilers for
things up to the 12-1pm episode of Season 1
Summary - Exploration of Jack's thoughts
in the helicopter ride back to CTU HQ - God help him, he's
seen those looks before.
Disclaimer - Not mine. Not making any
money. I own nothing but the angst, and that's debatable.
There was something Teri
wasn't telling him.
Now that he looked for it, it was all too clear in the
tightness in her face as she looked everywhere but up at
him. He could feel it even more clearly in the rigid set
of her shoulders as she almost-but-not-quite relaxed
against him and tried to believe they were finally safe
and together in CTU hands again.
Neither signal, in and of itself, would have been
surprising, given the terror he knew she'd been through
over the past twelve hours. If it had just been tension,
he could have put it down to that and let it go. But he
suspected it wasn't.
Then he'd known it for certain when he'd caught their
eyes meeting across him. Kim's gaze utterly miserable and
somehow urgent at the same time - her mouth opening to
say something, and then closing quickly - trapping the
unspoken words before they had a chance to escape. Teri's
glance flashing from panic to pleading to weary gratitude.
Then all of it, gone the instant they realised he was
looking - shuttered away behind brittle masks of coping
that stretched eggshell thin over a swirling shared abyss
of shellshock and disbelief.
There was something she wasn't telling him, and she was
expecting Kim not to tell him either.
He felt his stomach sinking. God help him, he had a good
idea of what it was too.
He'd seen those kinds of looks exchanged before. Looks
exchanged by haunted-eyed survivors in the aftermath of
one of Drazen's cleansing sweeps. Looks that said 'None
of this happened. If we don't acknowledge it, it never,
ever happened.' as the victims tried to pick up the
shattered pieces of their lives and carry on. Looks he
hadn't seen since Kosovo.
Oh yes, he'd seen those kinds of looks exchanged before.
He kept the anger out of the hand he was using to slowly
stroke the short, soft curls of his wife's hair, drawing
her gently against him. He kept it out of his voice as he
whispered over and over in her ear that she was safe. But
he couldn't keep it out of his empty hand - the one on
the other side of him. The one she couldn't feel - the
one clenched so tightly it was a miracle he hadn't heard
the bones snapping yet.
Not at her, of course. God, no. The anger wasn't aimed at
her. It was aimed squarely at himself. Because he knew -
couldn't avoid knowing - that if it hadn't been for him -
for his job - for his relationship with her - none of it
would ever have happened. To either of them.
He'd lived for a long time now with a lot on his
conscience. That came with the territory when you were ex-Delta.
He'd seen things - hell, he'd done things - he'd had to
learn to live with over the years.
But he didn't know how he could possibly live with the
guilt of this one. This was Teri. This was Kim. This was
his *family*. His nails dug deeper into the palm of his
hand. There was no way he could live with this.
He felt a sudden, gentle jolt - became aware of the
whirring of the rotors outside lowering in pitch as they
slowed to a stop. They'd landed.
Calling on years of mental discipline, he forced the
thoughts of his family to the back of his mind. He was
going to need whatever wits he still had left about him
for the debrief with Greene. But he knew - oh, how he
knew - it was only a temporary respite. He was going to
have to face it sooner or later. And when he did, he was
going to have to be there for Teri. He was going to have
to help her heal. And somehow, God help them both, he was
going to have to find a way to live with it.
End
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