geeky_agent | (no subject)

Current Mood: melancholy

(no subject)

June 18, 2011

Chris didn't know why she was here.

It was almost five and still hot out, the gentle breeze making the heat bearable. Her dress suit was some light wool-silk blend that had left her cold in the office but was a comfort while standing under the afternoon sun.

She'd come from work, a meeting at Division and she'd been sent to represent District while the Director was out of town. On her way to work, she had passed by the cemetery where Jack was "buried".

Chris had never visited his grave before and wasn't sure why she was doing so now, she wasn't any closer to Jack here than she was at CTU. Perhaps, less so.

With a sigh, she laid the bouquets down. Both small, simple and white, one at Teri's grave and one at Jack's.

I miss you.

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"Mainly around the Meditteranean," he says, shifting the pizza box on his lap so he can fasten his seatbelt. "Spain, Italy, Greece, through the Balkans, then across North Africa. That was only for a few months, though. After that I settled in Canada."

She briefly looks over at him before pulling the car out of the space. "Really? Where in Canada?"

"About two hours northeast of Toronto, near a place called Lakefield. I have a cabin on a small lake, there," he says, shifting the pizza box so it's not searing the top of his thighs.

The shifting is noted. "I think there's a towel in the back seat somewhere if you want to grab it."

She'd grab it for him but yeah, kinda preoccupied. "That sounds nice." Though Canada was a surprising choice. Chris would have thought he'd choose somewhere more out of the way. But the cabin out in the woods seemed to suit Jack. "It's a good thing you're not closer to Toronto. After what happened last month, the security must be tight in that city."

Jack shifts again, though this time it's not because of the pizza. "Yeah, they got quite the wake-up call with that one. It was a pretty close call, too," he says, a little slowly.

Chris gets the strangest, niggling thought in the back of her mind. But, surely, it's not possible.

"It was a good thing the Canadian authorities figured it out before anything happened. Close call."

"Yeah, it's a good thing they did," he says, still rather shifty. "I imagine it'll be pretty different when I cross the border this time."

The shiftiness is starting to make her wonder.

"Yeah, it would," Chris says, glancing briefly at him. "How long ago did that happen for you?" She's so accustomed to the different timelines that her mind doesn't even register what an odd question that is.

"Well considering all the time I spent im Milliways, minus the week or so outside I lost while I was there...a couple months? Few months? I'm not exactly sure."

"Well, I meant when you had arrived in Milliways," she explains, making a right turn.

"So you haven't had any problems while outside. I mean, I'm guessing no one recognized you or anything."

"Well I got back to Milliways around the same time as the attacks. And no, so far it's been quiet. No one's blinked twice at my ID or anything."

"That's good," she sighs with relief. Chris had spent a lot of nights worrying about Jack. Hour spent looking over reports for any sign that he might have been discovered, knowing that if he had, she might never know.

Pulling the car into a parking space near her condo, she kills the engine and is quiet for a few moments. Finally, in a hushed tone, "I was worried."

Jack's quiet for a moment, tapping one finger against the corner of the pizza box unconsciously. Realizing what he's doing, and how annoying it probably sounds, he stops.

After a moment, he takes her hand in his. His reflex is to tell her she shouldn't have worried, but he knows it's not much good saying it.

"I know. I was worried about everyone else. About you. About what would happen if anyone found out."

She's surprised by the touch and amazed by the effect it has on her. Before she has time to think about it, her hand squeezes his.

"So far it's worked out ok," Chris says, a faint smile on her lips as she glosses over some crucial facts. "I'm glad you're all right."

"Yeah, it has," he says, softly. It'd been his one comfort during that long year outside of the bar. It had been lonely and depressing, but at least he'd known that his loved ones were safe.

The contact is suddenly uncomfortable; had he gone too far? He pulls his hand away, turning slightly to open the passenger door. "We'd better head in before the pizza gets cold," he says, his stomach rumbling in reminder.

"Yeah," she says quickly, unbuckling her seat belt and pushing open the door. After all this time, it still felt natural to be close to him. But she knew the same might not be true for Jack, that she might be overthinking a friendly gesture.

It had been longer for him. We've spent more time apart than we did together. He'd probably moved on and even if he hadn't, things hadn't changed enough that it would make a difference.

Chris looks over with a smile. "So aside from my sister, meet anyone interesting?"

He's kicking himself for making so personal a gesture, when he doesn't even know whether she still has feelings for him. For all he knows she could be seeing someone else by now.

"A few people. I didn't really have the chance to get to know anyone, considering I was moving around a lot and couldn't tell them who I really was," he says, climbing out of the car.

"When I was in Sarajevo I met one older man who had a small cafe that he'd owned for twenty years at least; it had been his father's before him. Even all during the war, he'd open up every day at five in the morning, make bread and other things when he had the ingredients for them, sweep up the glass from shot-out windows or take off the metal shutters and open up for the day. Even if the fighting was bad and no one came, he always opened up. You could still see some of the bullet holes in the walls; he wouldn't patch them up. A reminder, he said."

She stands at the front of the car, waiting for him to get out before proceeding towards the condo.

To says she's surprised that Jack went back to the Balkans, especially an area affected by the war, is an understatemnet. "I don't think many people would be able to deal with those kinds of reminders."

"Yeah, a lot of people don't, " he says, following her up the sidewalk. "There's been a lot of rebuilding going on, especially in the last few years. Like people want to make it look like the war never happened, partcularly considering the city was so...so modern, so normal beforehand. Like those years have been edited out like a bad take in a strip of film."

Reaching the door to the condo first, she opens it. "I'm surprised you went back."

He shrugs as best he can while holding the pizza. "It's fairly peaceful now, but the bureaucracy was still weak enough that I could get in, move around without too much of a problem." There's a short pause before he adds, "Besides, I figured it was the chance to lay some ghosts to rest."

The elevator doors open almost as soon as she pushes the button. Softly, she says, "I can't believe it's been almost fifteen years."

Much of the information about Operation Nightfall was still classified. The bar had given her the book about what had happen - or one version of it. What was true and what was fiction, Chris didn't know.

"What was it like? Being there again?"

"It was...it was weird. Things had changed a lot. I still recognised a lot of landmarks around Pristina and Belgrade." He'd actually been able to orient himself enough to find what little remained of Drazen's compound; stone foundations in an overgrown, more open area dotted with a few young trees. Going into Kosovo had been out of his way, but part of him felt he had to go, no matter the memories it brought back.

And it had helped, particularly when, as he'd stood in the area of the woods closest to the village, he'd heard the squeals and giggles of children in the woods. It had sounded like they were playing a variant on "hide and seek", and he'd stood there and listened to them for a while. Somehow it was nice hearing evidence that all Drazen had worked to build was now lost, destroyed, trampled on by children who didn't know his name. That, and the reminder that children were the same everywhere.

"Still, things have changed quite a bit, which was nice to see; kind of reassuring, too. Life goes on," he says, waiting for her to step into the elevator as the doors slide open, before entering himself. It wasn't quite as easy as he made it sound, but it was the attitude he hoped to have.

Chris entered the elevator, when Jack was inside she hit the button to her floor.

He sounded calm about it, calmer than she'd think she could be in his position. There were some parts of Afghanistan that Chris would never want to go back to, wanted to erase from memory. None of the battles were as bad as losing your entire team.

A million thoughts passed through her head, how different it would be if Nightfall never happened. We wouldn't be in this elevator. Teri would be alive. My dad ... She closes her eyes briefly, trying to forget the memories of that trainyard.

"Yeah, it does." The elevator comes to a stop at her floor. "Did you spend a lot of time in the Balkans?"

"About a month, maybe a little more. I went through a few countries there: Bosnia, Serbia, Albania...Kosovo," he says, quickly following her out of the elevator before the door can close on him.

He debates mentioning that he went back to the Drazen compound, but then stnading in a hallway where anyone living on that floor could hear isn't exactly the place to do it. "Things were still pretty rough and unorganized there but they've rebuilt quite a bit in the last eleven years."