geeky_agent | Nothing

Current Mood: empty
Current Music: Cold, cold water surrounds me now

Nothing

She wanted to sleep. She felt like she'd been hollowed out. Something about her conversation with Jack made her feel the same way she had when she found out her father died.

Nothing's changed. When I leave here my father will be gone forever and I'll go back to my life.

Can't tell anyone about this. Not about seeing her dad, not about the facts surrounding his death. Nothing.

She couldn't change anything. There wasn't any justice for her father. She had just to accept this - that was the worst of it.

No.

No, the worst was that after she told him about her family, she watched his face crumple and heard the tears in voice and for a brief moment she almost felt sorry for him. The man who murdered father.

Whether she would go through with them or not she had been toying with the idea of getting back at him. It hadn't mattered if she would do it, just the fact that she could do it. That she could take control, do something.

But Chris knew, she wouldn't be able to do that. Her anger was already slipping away from her only to replaced by this hollowness.

She had nothing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No other options? He took you away from *us*. The United States does not negotiate with terrorists. That is what you've *always* told me."

She looks at him. "You've killed an innocent man?"

"Sometimes you have to make compromises," he says quietly.

He looks at her.

"Yes, I have. I don't know who but I know I've made decisions that have resulted in the deaths of innocents. I don't know the numbers or the names but I know that I have. That's the cost of doing my job - our job."

She looks away. She knows that of course, that the decisions they made were more than just academic.

"But it seems like a large leap from 'decisions that have resulted in the deaths of innocents' and putting a gun against someone and pulling the trigger."

"Maybe, but the end result is still the same. Whether it's signing a paper or pulling a trigger - innocent people have died."

"But no one will ever be punished for what happened to you. The truth will never be known and that's just...wrong."

He takes her hand and gives it a light squeeze.

"I know."

"How can you be so okay with that? With the fact that the man who murdered you is out there having a life. Having a great life. A life where he's high up in Washington and powerful and happy..."

"What good does it do me to be angry? It doesn't change anything. It doesn't make me feel any better," he sighs.

"It is difficult knowing all the things I left unfinished. The people I left behind. But, in some ways I've been given a second chance here to try and make up lost time. And I'm grateful for that much and for having you here."

"But I live out *there* and I could do something. I could tell the media, I could..."

Get revenge for you, make them pay for what's happened

"I know and I should be here talking about my new boyfriend or how much I hate Division or the way that Ryan Jr.'s daughter smiles and all I can feel is this kind of emptiness."

"Do you think doing that would help the emptiness go away?"

"I've devoted my life to government service and they took you away. I watched things like The X-Files but never thought that the kind of secrecy and evil that they used for dramatic effect could actually *exist*."

She looks up at him. "Jack came to see me tonight and *wanted* me to hurt him. And I wished that I had my gun or a weapon or just could have hit him until he stopped moving."

He wants to be shocked at what she told him about Jack visiting her but he's not. It sounds like the kind of insane thing he would do. But he focuses on the other thing his daughter said.

"But you didn't hurt him."

"Not with my hands."

"Did that make you feel better?"

She wants to say that yes, seeing the effect of her words on Jack made her feel much better. But that would be a lie.

"I told him about what he took away from the world when he pulled the trigger and no it didn't make me feel any better. I wish I was the type of person who could take joy from other people's pain...but I don't think I am."

"No, you're not," he says as he puts his arm around her shoulders.

She leans against him. "I wish I was because then maybe I wouldn't feel so helpless and powerless to do anything."

"Chris, I don't think there's anything you can do to Jack that will make your pain go away. It won't take away that empty feeling. I know you love me and and you want to try and make this right or even somehow. But you can't. All you can do is try to move on with your life. I just want you to be happy."

"And the worst thing is that I can't even properly hate him." She takes a breath. "I think if anyone else had done it I wouldn't feel this way because at least there'd be *some* chance to get justice. But he really is untouchable."

He is, Ryan thought bitterly as her words brought to mind old arguments.

"I know," he says calmly.

"I heard stories at Division and even CTU-NY and I didn't think any of them could really be true. I thought there's no way that CTU-LA had a trained killer on their payroll or that President Palmer could ever be friends with someone who most people wouldn't trust in a room alone with a suspect..." she swallows. "And I hate that you were killed by someone like that. I hate that you're never coming home."

That last sentence is almost like a knife to the heart.

"I hate it too. I've missed you - all of you, so much," he admits to her.

"I want to tell Caiti and Ryan about this place, I want to tell them that I saw dad and he's okay. I wish I could bring her here because then maybe she'd be more like the sister I remember and less like the shell that's existed for the past year."

She doesn't bother wiping away her tears.

He hugs her a little tighter. The thought of what Caiti was going through twists the knife a little more.

"I don't know if that's possible."

"I know, because they wouldn't believe me. Because *I* wouldn't believe me."

She wraps her arms around him, holding him in a way that she rarely did when he was alive.

"It's not fair that some people seem to get to make their own rules and other people have to live with the consequences."

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