whathastobedone | For Jack Bauer -- a MM thread

For Jack Bauer -- a MM thread

She can feel it slipping through her fingers. Everything. All of it. Vladimir has called every contact he could possibly think of, and none of them know anything about the nuclear rods.

"Well, somebody that you've already talked to has to know something!"

"Renee, it's done."

No. No, it's not done. It can't be done. Jack's sitting downstairs waiting for this information; all of CTU is counting on her to find these rods, and if it's done that means the mission is over. Jack will pull her out, and she'll go back to...

What?

"We made five million."

"Why settle for five when we could have fifty?"

He laughs, and just looking at him makes her sick to her stomach, but then he's touching her and it's all she can do to keep her cool -- keep her cover. She smiles at him, hands on his waist like the thought of his body against hers doesn't repulse her, and tries to think.

"Five million is plenty. Plus, we have each other. That's not so bad, is it?"

"No, it's not bad," she smiles. "But it could be better!"

And then she moves, trying not to run but keeping her steps quick as she goes for his phone.

"Call them again. Do it for me."

Please.

Please.

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Just because her focus is on Jack, doesn't mean she misses the look on the doctor's face. What it does mean, is that she has a good excuse for pretending not to notice it.

(The lurching feeling in her stomach, however, is slightly harder to ignore.)

She's already backing her way to one of the chairs in the room when he starts talking to her, and under better circumstances he might have gotten a smirk -- or even a laugh -- in answer. Tonight, she simply shifts her hollow eyes to his face and half-shrugs.

"I can handle it."

It sounds uncannily like "I've seen worse."

It takes a couple minutes from the injection of the anaethetic, but soon Jack can feel the pain start to ebb, feel his muscles starting to relax and a kind of peacefulness come over him.

"Feel that?" Cottle asks, and Jack looks down to see him gently prodding the wound.

Jack shakes his head. "Can't feel it at all. Sure there aren't any opiates in this?"

"Totally different chemical makeup; gods only know which world it comes from," Cottle says, dragging over what looks like a small cable attached to a monitor. Though his mind's feeling a little hazy, Jack can put together enough of what's going to happen to look away. He might be feeling pretty peaceful at the moment, but he doesn't exactly want to see Cottle stick the scope inside his wound.

"Let's see what we've got here. Looks pretty deep, but a clean cut. Ah, there's a nick in your small intestine, and looks like you've got a slow leak. Lucky for you, it's something I can fix using this thing, instead of having to open you up. You got your wish, no knockout juice for you. When's the last time you ate?"

Jack thinks for a minute, trying to remember what time it had been when they'd come in the bar, the drugs not making it easy to remember. "Nine hours ago, I think. Hot dog at the zoo with Teri."

"Well you're going to have to stick with fluids for at least 24 hours while this heals. I'll give you a shot of antibiotics to make sure you don't get an infection, but I'm gonna have to suture the skin the old-fashioned way and insert a tube to let the wound drain."

"One more scar's not gonna hurt," Jack says, looking over at Renee as Cottle gets down to business. "Told you I was going to be okay."

Renee is watching everything that's happening closely, and at the same time... not. It's strange, like she's not inside her own head. Her mind keeps wandering to Vladimir's office, to CTU headquarters, to the look in Jack's eyes when her thrust had struck true, to an empty apartment in New York.

She's aware of the shift in Jack's body language and expression, dimly relieved to know he's experiencing some comfort. She's aware of the doctor's movements, and the confident set of his jaw.

(He was at the zoo with his granddaughter I could be on a plane to Los Angeles right now and now he's in a hospital bed again because of you.)

But it takes a second to realize Jack was speaking to her.

She blinks, focusing on his face. Closes her mouth with a hard blink and sighs, before managing a small, crooked smile.

"Not done yet."

"Maybe not, but will be soon." He looks at her carefully, trying to see if she looks hurt, but his brain isn't processing well enough to put any pieces together. "How are you feeling? I heard something fall; was that you?"

She opens her mouth and sucks in breath of hesitation.

"I'm fine," she assures him, first of all. "Things got a little rough. Yeah, that was me."

She absently reaches her left hand to prod at her jaw. It's tender, but not dislocated or broken.

She remembers what that feels like.

"You should get some ice from the bar; we've got time. I'm not going anywhere for anywhere for another twenty minutes." Even if Cottle wasn't likely to make sure of it, Jack isn't sure he could get up at the moment. Or that he wants to, considering how comfortable he feels, just like this.

"I'll be all right."

When she pulls her hand away from her face, she realizes she's still covered in blood. She rubs her fingertips together, watching it pill and smear over her skin, then starts rubbing her hands. She should probably clean up; no wonder Dr. Cottle looked at her the way he did.

She's just not sure she can get her legs to work, now that she's sitting.

"You think maybe you should rest for a little bit longer?" she asks, before shifting her gaze to the doctor. "The anesthetic has him numbed up pretty good, right? What if he pulls his sutures?"

Yes, she remembers how Jack "babies" his wounds during missions.

"The internal mends won't break unless there's pressure exerted from inside; they're more healed instead of just sutured. The ones in the skin shouldn't break either; I don't know what they're made of exactly, but it's the strongest stuff I've seen," Cottle says, giving Jack a disapproving look. "And unfortunately I can't do anything about the stupidity of my patients. I agree you should get some rest, but somehow I think you're going to be just as frakking pigheaded as you usually are, am I right?"

"CTU can handle most of the rest of it when we get back. Besides it's not like I haven't sutured my own wounds before," Jack says.

Renee doesn't interject with anything as Jack and the doctor speak, but at the mention of CTU handling things once they're back, her mind once again wanders to Vladimir's hole-ridden body.

She's sitting with her forearms on her knees, hands still clasped together loosely, and now her eyes are unfocused and distant as she thinks about the fallout waiting for her back out there.

It should be obvious to those who know her what she's thinking of, just by the glassy-eyed expression and frown on her face. The voices in the room fade out of existence.

Jack's not so dopey that he doesn't notice Renee staring into space absently.

"Renee?" he asks, hopefully just loudly enough to get her attention. "You sure you don't need some rest?"

"I'll be fine," she murmurs, voice small and automatic, like her response was more of a reflex than anything.

Jack doesn't say anything as Cottle finishes up, sternly reminding Jack not to even think of going anywhere for a while yet. He might trust Cottle, but there are some things he doesn't need to overhear.

"Renee? Come here for a minute," he says, holding out a hand to her.

She blinks herself out of her reverie, noticing for the first time that the doctor has left the room. Her eyes go from the door to Jack's hand, and she picks herself up and walks over to him, eyes wandering the suture site.

"Do you need something? Are you comfortable?"

"I'm fine. I wasn't kidding when I said I wasn't feeling any pain," he says with a weak smile. "All I need is for you to try and focus. I know it's difficult, but we've still got a few things to do out there."

She absorbs his words carefully, pursing her lips in thought. She doesn't look focused -- she doesn't feel focused -- but that doesn't stop her from assuring him she is.

(Forget the way her eyes never quite meet his.)

"I'll ... I'll get through it."

She doesn't sound any more certain about that than he is.

"CTU's going to have questions about what happened. You sure you don't want to take the chance to rest now? Or is it that you don't think you could?"

He may not know everything she's been through, but he knows what it's like to not be able to escape persistent thoughts and memories. He knows what it's like to have them attack even more fiercely every time you close your eyes and try to get some sleep or try to relax, until that's the last thing you want to do.

It's that knowledge that simultaneously makes her want to resist him, and cling to him for comfort. Knowing he knows brings both a sense of fear -- like she's exposed herself to him -- and a feeling of companionship (you're not alone in this).

It's thus conflicted that she chooses to deflect the question, rather than give him a straight answer.

"Do you want to rest?"

"You didn't answer my question," he says, though he gives her a small smile as he says it. "But no. I actually had a short nap before any of this started."

He doesn't say anything for a moment before he adds, softly, "You don't have to do this alone, Renee."

He'd tried, and it hadn't worked out very well for him.

Edited 2010-02-12 06:43 (UTC)

Her eyes slowly shift to his when he answers. She shakes her head.

"I'll be all right, then."

Her gaze falls away again, when he murmurs his closing words. She squeezes her eyes shut for a brief moment, drawing in a deep breath.

"You don't have to do this, Jack."

"I know I don't," he says, reaching for her hand. "I want to, though."

She furrows her brow and frowns, slowly shaking her head before she finds the words to speak.

"Why?"

She wraps her fingers around his hand.

"I could've killed you."

"You didn't, and like I said before, it was an accident." He squeezes her hand. "I want you to be happy again, Renee, and I want to help. I've been worried about you. I...I care about you."

"I don't know how to get to that place," she blurts, voice soft and riddled with emotion. Tears are pricking the backs of her eyes, turning his skin and bedsheets hazy around the edges. "I don't know how to be happy again. I thought this--I thought doing this would help, but I've only made a bigger mess of things."

She grimaces, trying to hold back her emotions. She doesn't even notice the way her grip has gone tighter around his hand, her heart aching when he tells her that he cares. She isn't sure what to say to that (maybe that's why you never picked up the phone), so she's forced to settle for silent, helpless tears.

"You haven't," he says, reaching up to brush a tear from her cheek. "We're further ahead than we were a couple hours ago. Laitanan made all those calls because of you, and every one of them is a new lead."

He squeezes her hand again. "I know you're not the same person you were the last time I saw you. Neither am I. But the one thing that hasn't changed is that if you decide you're going to do something, you don't let anything stop you. You might not know how to start and it might not be easy, but if you really want to rebuild your life, I know you're going to do it."

His touch, and the reassurance that she has done something to help this investigation, calms her down somewhat. She refocuses on his eyes, concentrating on the strength there, brow knitted with hundreds of questions and worries buried beneath the surface.

"How?" she whispers with a slight shake of her head. "It's been over a year since the last time we saw each other; why do you care? What makes you think I can do this?"

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