Author’s Note – This takes place between hours 21 and 22, in the second season of 24… it is from Kate’s perspective as she reflects on not only the trauma of the day so far, but upon Jack and her feelings for him as well. Minor spoilers for these episodes are present. I am writing these, having no idea whatsoever on what is going to happen in the last episode of the season. Having no idea whether or not Kate and Jack are going to get together, whether or not Kate is going to die (let’s hope not) or if (heaven and producers forbid) she’s in the same boat as her sister. I have no idea if this piece will fit right into the story seamlessly or not, but if it does and Jack and Kate do indeed get together, then I will be mighty pleased with myself. If not… oh well. (shrug) At least I tried.

Even if you don’t like the story, or only like it so-so, please review and tell me your thoughts. We writers put a lot of time into writing fanfic (at least I do) and the only payment we receive is in the reviews the people who read that story leave. Don’t think that your reviews don’t matter, because they do. Please, PLEASE review!!

“Kate? Kate, are you alright?”

Kate brought herself out of her muddled revere and back to the present, as she felt a strong but gentle hand fall upon the curve of her back. The other gently grasping her upper arm in an effort to turn her towards him.

Picking her head up from where her hands had been holding it, elbows braced on the kitchen counter, she turned to look at him. Rubbing her fingers over her strained and damp eyes. Shoving her mass of pale hair away from her ashen facial features.

Being back home had unleashed a flood of memories. Memories that she didn’t want to dwell upon anymore. This morning seemed so long ago. A morning where she’d been helping plan a wedding. A morning where she actually knew who her family was, and a morning where she had believed with all of her heart that the only threat to their life, was her sister’s mysterious and foreign fiancé.

She had been such an ignorant fool. Why couldn’t she have seen the truth when it had been staring right back at her? How could she not have known?

 “Everything…” she started slowly. Her voice sounding hoarse and tremulous even to her own ears, as she looked away from him. “… That’s happened today, everything that’s still happening, I keep thinking its all my fault.”

Kate, come here.”

She allowed him to slowly turn her around to face him. Staring back into his strangely comforting expression. His hands were still clasped gently on her arms. The warmth of it sinking in deep despite the cloth of her sleeves.

“We would have never found the bomb in time if it wasn’t for you.”

Kate blinked at his reassurance. A quick denial coming to her lips as she searched his eyes for anything that would give away what he truly believed. All she saw there was empathy and a quiet, calming emotion that defied the man that most had seen today.

“But my sister was the one behind the bomb. She helped those fanatics.” Kate felt the sharpness of that particular pain well up within her heart once more. How in the world could she ever forget the things that her sister had said? The things that she had done… Had tried to do?

How could she ever forget the creature that Marie had become?

“Yes, but you’re not your sister.”

Kate closed her eyes briefly. The tone of his voice a cooling balm upon her fractured thoughts and emotions that barely seemed to be holding her together at the moment. But it still couldn’t stop her from believing that she should have done something else. Something… more. What could she say to get him to understand?

“I should have seen something was wrong, before it got this bad.” The words exited her mouth guiltily, like she was confessing her darkest crime. Driven by some elemental need to be completely honest with him. “Cause of what she did, it could start a war.”

Kate saw the denial in Jack’s expression as he began to shake his head, and her eyes began to burn, as she forced out the rest in a sense of anguish. Her words openly and harshly condemning herself in a last ditch attempt to make him see that she was truly responsible for what had happened.

“I could have stopped it. I could have stopped it!”

Jack shook his head harder. Reflecting absolute belief in what he spoke as he stared back into her eyes with conviction. Driving each and every word home in her mind in such a way that it broke for no argument that would continue in having Kate believe otherwise.

“No Kate, you couldn’t have. There are things in this world that are just out of our control. Sometimes we like to blame ourselves for them, so we can try and make sense of them…”

Jack paused as he contemplated the woman in front of him. What did he see, Kate wondered idly. Did she look as emotionally broken and physically battered as she felt? Obviously she did, given his next move.

“Come here,” he whispered under his breath. His hand coming up to cup the back of her head as she willingly let him pull her into his embrace.

The warmth of his body immediately began to seep into hers, which she hadn’t realized until just now how cold it had felt. Pressing her face against the hardness of his shoulder, she felt the tears begin to well up again as she clung to him. Seeking relief from the bombardment of her doubts and fears and incriminations.

As if reading her thoughts, his arms tightened around her, and he smoothed the silken, tangled mass of her hair against her nape. The caress strangely intimate in its comfort. Rocking her slowly, as her eyes finally released a few more beads of moisture.

“There was nothing you could have done.”

Kate felt a silent whimper reverberate in her throat, but she didn’t give it its voice. With just a few words, he had disarmed her of her self-recriminations. She felt raw and torn within. The stress from the past hours catching up and the over-all trauma rising to the surface after being suppressed for so long. She was honestly starting to believe that she would not have mentally, much less physically, survived this day without the man currently holding her in his arms, giving her something to cling to in a moment of desperation, while she teetered on the edge of a complete emotional break-down.

And maybe, in a way, she had been the same for him.

Burrowing her face in deeper to block out all thought, she felt his chin rest briefly on her shoulder. The coarseness of the stubble across his jaw scraping over the smooth and tender skin of her neck and ear… and for a brief moment, she was not only receiving comfort, but giving it as well, as her fingers tightened against the rock solidness of his shoulder.

Lord only knew what he had been through in the last few hours... But he had always been there when she had needed him the most. He had kept his promise, and had remained her protector throughout all of it. Had done things to keep her safe that most wouldn’t have.

Granted, he was doing his job, and he did it well… but she also knew that the way he was holding her now had very little to do with his responsibilities to CTU.

What was happening between them?

Reluctantly pulling away, she met his gaze once more. And her awareness grew as she suddenly acknowledged the answer to her own question. What was happening between them now was nothing new. It had been coming on ever since she had first met him.

She had known then, despite having just been horribly interrogated and watching a man die because she had hired him to help her, that her life was about to change drastically.

But nothing could have prepared her for this. For him.

As if to echo her sentiments, Jack stroked his thumb tenderly across her cheek and jaw, careful of her bruised skin. The gentle contact bringing fresh tears to the surface. She had seen so many sides of this man today… some that were so completely frightening and dangerous that she never wanted to see them again. And then others… like the way he was when he was talking to his daughter. Like he was when he had been protecting her. Instructing her, guiding her throughout the day. And even the way he was now… the way he was touching her… she didn’t want him to stop.

Something was happening. Changing. The way he was looking at her now… it was personal. Not business. It hadn’t been for a while now.

She leaned her cheek into his palm slightly as he tucked a lock of her hair back behind her ear. Smiling at her as he did so. Eyes darkening with something that Kate hadn’t seen directed at her in a long time. And never with quite the degree of intimacy and protectiveness and tenderness that she was seeing reflected back at her now.

She never thought that anyone would look at her like that. Didn’t think it was possible.

But it was possible. Wasn’t it? This couldn’t be impersonal for him, could it? He was looking at her as if he wanted to kiss her, and she knew she had that same desire burning deep down in her body. She wanted – no, needed – him to touch her again. Bring her back to him… To make the first move. To make her forget about what had happened today, if only for a moment. To truly, genuinely make her believe that everything was going to be alright.

And she was a woman that had never needed anything.

And he was going to kiss her. She was sure of it. She saw the change of awareness in his slightly haunted gaze, felt the way he stilled, hands still resting upon the side of her face. He was so close… she could sense him in a way that was baffling yet wonderfully right to her. The sound of his breathing, the beat of his heart, the smell of his individual scent, the ever present warmth of his body… and he needed the connection to her as well, she was certain of it. They were like two little children that survived the storm in one piece. Strangely finding comfort in each other presence... And wanting that comfort to be something more.

Kate’s waited breathlessly… Reveling in the moment… knowing that any second now he was going to lean closer into her and –

And then her heart fluttered deep in her chest from the sudden wave of disappointment, as the ring of Jack’s cell phone cut through the air…. And she watched those comforting and warm eyes shift immediately back from their unguarded softness to the slightly hard, slightly distant, all-business look that announced that whatever moment they had just been submerged in was now, even possibly regrettably, past.

His hands dropped from their positions on her skin, almost as if he had been burned. As he excused himself, Kate suddenly snapped back to the present. Struggling to get a hold of herself once more. Remembering why this day had happened to begin with, remembering what it was that had actually brought them together, and what it was that Jack was still fighting against. He didn’t need any more distraction then he already had.

Forcing the memory of that moment lost back into the corner of her mind just like she had done with almost all the other memories associated with this day, she watched him out of the corner of her eye – hastily created emotional barriers more or less secure – as he rushed back over from his corner to write something down on a piece of paper that was resting on the kitchen counter just a few inches away from where she was standing.

Snapping his cell shut, he turned back to her. Regret visible in the tired lines around his mouth and eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’ve gotta go.”

She frowned slightly. Suddenly not fond at all of the idea of being separated from him. “Where?”

“They’ve got something off the chip. Not what we were looking for, but it’s a lead. I’ll have to follow it up. As soon as you’re ready to leave here, one of the officers will take you back to CTU, so you can be with your father.”

Kate forced herself to relax, and managed of tremulous smile that just barely reached her tired eyes.

“Thanks.”

Jack smiled back at her, and for a moment, she saw the man standing there as the one who had just moments ago been holding her so carefully in his arms. And she saw that look for what it was.

And her heart skipped a beat.

He didn’t want to leave her either. Didn’t want to walk away from such a moment… but they both knew that whatever it might have been, or whatever might have happened, that moment was past. It was an unspoken acknowledgment on both their parts.

She just prayed that such a moment as that had been, wouldn’t turn out to be the last one that they ever had.

‘Okay…” Jack muttered gently if albeit uncomfortably, taking one good look at her in goodbye, before turning around and walking away. Understanding that he didn’t have the luxury to spend any more time here in the Warner household.

“Jack?” Her voice stopped him right before he made it to the hallway leading from the kitchen into the family room. He turned back around.

“Yeah?”

Her words were simple, but they were all that she could say at that time. All that she could say right now when faced with the reality yet again of who and what Jack Bauer was.

“Be careful.”

He smiled again, and for a moment, she could imagine that the horrors of the day, horrors that they both had endured, and horrors that reflected themselves deep down within those eyes, had just completely melted away. Leaving behind a man that Kate so much wanted to be with.

But which aspect of what he showed to the rest of the world was truly the core of who he was?

“Thanks. I will be.”

And with those words, he disappeared from view. Leaving Kate standing there alone beside the kitchen counter, as she watched him go with a growing sense of unease. Wondering wildly if that would be the last time she would ever see him again.

Kate couldn’t stop the moan the rumbled deep in her throat as she eased her battered and exhausted body into the large porcelain claw-footed tub situated in her own personal bathing room.

Lighting was almost nonexistent. The main supplier of the soft golden glow in the chamber was from the various scented candles that she had lit. Their aroma filling the room and mingling with the sensual fragrances escaping from the heated water that slid around her skin the caress of a long-lost companion. Stinging momentarily when it came in contact with the various cuts and scrapes etched upon her flesh. But soon even the worst of that began to fade away on the steam, as one by one her muscles began to loosen from the knotted cramps, and she allowed herself to finally relax. Taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly as she sank deeper into the foam covered water.

Her head fell back against the rim of the tub, eyes closing in bliss, as the water lapped soothingly at her neck. Wiping away the memory of so many vicious and unfamiliar hands that had encircled it non-to-gently throughout the day, while reminding her of another’s touch that had always been gentle. One whose touch had never offended or, hell, even frightened her… Even when all common sense was telling her to be hysterical.

Of course that was the way it had been from the very beginning. How many times had she done things throughout this day, that went so completely against her own instinctual responses of what she knew she could and could not take, simply at the urging of that man? How many people had she seen him kill so impersonally? How many had he killed protecting her? How many times had he saved her… and how many times had he stood by her side and guided her through whatever she had had to go through?

She couldn’t lie to herself. She was still unnerved by some of the things that he had said and done. How good an actor he could be at times. How unreadable… And how feral but yet extremely focused he became when pissed off.

There was a hard core of violence that ran deep within him… but try as she might, she couldn’t make herself fear him for it. Because every time she had seen that deadly focus rise to the surface, it had been when he had was protecting either himself, his country or her.

She couldn’t fear it, simply because she believed with all of her heart that he would never hurt her. Although there had been a couple of times already this night that she hadn’t been too sure about that belief.

But yet she was still alive, and she was back home. He had saved her yet again, this time from those horrible red neck freaks and murderers. And he had gone back out there. Still caught within his ever-driving need and determination to search out whatever or whomever he needed to prove his case to the rest of world.

It was his responsibility. It was his obsession.

And somewhere along the line she had become so irrevocably caught up within it.

She still remembered what it had felt like when she had watched him board that plane. Putting two plus two together and realizing what he meant to do. Realizing that he was willing to sacrifice his life for the lives of millions to ensure that the job was completed correctly. Believing that no one else could be trusted with that responsibility.

She remembered the way he had turned back to look at her when she had called out his name. The look in his eyes as he had held her gaze for such a short moment, and then disappeared into that condemned plane…

And then her shock and overwhelming relief to find out that he was still alive… and something else. The same ‘something else’ that had her going with him willingly and without struggle when he had “kidnapped” her from CTU… the same ‘something else’ that had her literally putting her life in his hands without so much as a second thought…

And the same ‘something else’ that she had clung to stubbornly despite her fear and uncertainty as to his motives when he had been prepared to turn her over to that cold-hearted bastard in return for the whereabouts of the chip.

He had been so hard and unemotional then. A virtual stranger to her and yet… she hadn’t fought him. Instead, she had chosen to trust him. Believing that even if that trust cost her life, it was a worthy trade considering the sins of her sister.

And then… then all hell had broken loose, and she had never even received her answer… On whether or not he would have kept his bargain and turned his back on her and his promise to keep her safe, once the chip was in his possession, and walked away. Leaving her to undoubtedly be killed… Or if he would have done everything in his power to ensure that she would have walked out of there with him at her side when that time had come.

Maybe it was an answer she was better off not knowing.

Regardless though, she didn’t hold any hostility against him for that. They had been through too much for her to believe that he didn’t care about her safety. And even if she had died, then she would like to think that it would have been a comfort knowing that he had the information that this country so desperately needed at this difficult time.

Suddenly, the phone sitting beside her started to ring. Frowning slightly from the intrusion, she picked it up. Wondering who in the world would be calling at such an odd time at night.

“Hello?” she tentatively asked. Frown still etched in the furrow between her brows.

“Kate, It’s Jack Bauer.”

Kate felt as if someone had just doused her with ice water as her heart gave an uncertain jolt in her chest. On one hand thrilled to hear his voice, on the other automatically sensing something was wrong with its tone.

“Is everything alight?” She knew that he wouldn’t have just been calling for the sake of it. Not with how busy she knew he must be at the moment.

“No, it’s not. I need your help. My daughter has been involved in a self-defense shooting. I think she’s in shock. I need you to take the police officer that I left behind with you, go and pick her up and take her to CTU.”

Kate groaned inwardly. “I’m sorry, Jack. I sent the officer home.” Despite Jack’s order, she hadn’t seen any necessary reason for that officer to remain at her house. She wasn’t so far gone that she wasn’t capable of driving herself to CTU, and everyone that had wanted to harm or kill her today were either dead themselves, or locked away behind bars… Jack had seen to that personally.

“Son of a bitch.” Kate’s alarm was beginning to grow even more as she listened to the obvious distress in Jack’s voice as he cursed out loud. This was a side of him that she had never seen before. A side that was slowly beginning to lose its rigid control as doubt and fear and exhaustion began to ride at him hard. Fracturing his focus with the threats poised at Kim.

“I don’t – I don’t know what else to do!” The anguish in his slightly stuttered confession broke her heart. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need this added weight upon him right now. All he needed to do right now was focus on his objective and come out of it in one piece.

And if she could help him come to that conclusion, then it was no more than what she owed him after everything he had done for her.

“Well, I could do it. Go pick up Kim.”

“Can you?”

Kate couldn’t help but smile slightly at the hope reflected in the tone of his voice at her offer, which just made her all the more determined to help in any way she could. She could only imagine what it took for him to trust another with the welfare of his daughter. She wasn’t too sure about the details, but some of the whispered murmurs behind Jack’s back that she had been picking up on while at CTU earlier, had led her to believe that he had a damn good reason for being so guarded… and that this wasn’t the first time that Kim had been caught within a bad situation while her father was unable to come to her aid himself.

It touched her more than she wanted to admit that, when he didn’t seem to trust anyone else, he trusted her.

“Yeah.”

“Okay…” His relief was paramount, and Kate’s heart went out to him. “Then call the police, and tell them to meet you at 12 Blue Tree Drive, okay? It’s in your neighborhood, do you know where it is?”

“Yeah.” If Kate remembered correctly, it was only a few blocks away.

“Okay, I’ll call CTU now.”

Kate shifted her weight in the tub. All her notions about relaxing for the next hour or so forgotten the moment they had begun this conversation.

“Okay. I’ll leave right away.”

“Please, Kate. Hurry!”

Sensing the urgency and recognizing the vulnerability coming across in his words right before the line went dead, propelled Kate into action. Carefully stepping out of the tub, she grabbed a towel and padded into her bedroom. Leaving the door behind her open to allow the steam to escape.

The cool air fanned across her damp skin, dropping the temperature of her exposed flesh as she quickly dried off and extracted the worst of the moisture in her blond, bedraggled hair.

Quickly throwing on a pair of clean jeans and a shirt, she slipped her feet back into her shoes, grabbed her coat and purse, and exited her room. Walking down the hallway and out of the front door. Latching it behind her securely.

Sliding into the front seat of her Jeep, she fished inside her purse for the keys, her fingers brushing up against her cell phone as she pulled them out.

Looking down at it for a moment, she was indecisive upon remembering Jack’s request that she call the police. But something told her that was overkill. Kim had probably seen more than her fair share of cops today. If she was going into shock, and was already heavily armed, then probably the last thing she needed would be yet more police showing up. She would feel more at ease with only one person, and a woman at that.

Resolving that dilemma, she slid the key into the ignition and began to follow her mental map to the location that Jack had given her. Thinking idly back on her brief conversation with Jack over the phone.

It was always a shock a to her system when she got around him or heard his voice. It was one thing to think about him, quite another to be with him. There was an intensity around him that always had a way of infecting those around him. Until you couldn’t help but believe that every word he spoke was meant. Whether or not that was a good thing or not depended on the person he was with.

For Syed Ali, it had been a very bad thing.

Pulling her thoughts back away from that particularly nasty memory, she focused on the task at hand. Only time would be able to tell whether or not she would get a chance to know more about Jack Bauer. Only time would tell if she would get a chance to tell him what she felt towards him. Suddenly she didn’t feel quite as torn about things with him as she had earlier, and in an odd way, that had to do with that phone call.

Maybe it was because, even after all the men he had killed out of necessity, how matter-of-fact he was about doing whatever he had to do to survive, the idea of what his daughter was going through after also killing someone in self-defense, this time for the first, was tearing him apart. Maybe because that proved quicker than anything else who Jack Bauer really was.

And maybe it was also because, for the first time, he had put himself out there and had entrusted to her the most valuable person in his life. Knowing that he was exposing a vulnerability to her that most never saw, not only because the circumstances demanded it, but also because that after everything they had been through together, he felt he could believe in her to take care of his daughter when he himself could not.

And who knew that, even after the events of this day were over, if she would ever have a chance to see that vulnerability again. Whether or not he was even ready to have that kind of relationship with another, after having either lost it or been burned by it so many times in the past.

It was, as he had said, out of their control.

But it didn’t stop her from hoping. Didn’t stop her from wanting…

And it didn’t stop her from believing.

THE END

Did you like the story? You have complaints?
How about letting the author now what you think about her work?
Feedback to Sapphira (Please write in English)