geeky_agent | OOM: Visiting Family

Current Mood: worried

OOM: Visiting Family

She almost wishes Caiti would be there.

It would mean more questions and more problems, yes. They'd still have to explain Caiti having met Jack already in Morocco two years prior and she just knew that wouldn't go over well.

Still, she can't help but wonder if maybe it would be better to get everything out in the open now. (Not everything.) Caiti had always been good at dealing with problems between her sister and brother and it sounded like she and Jack had gotten along pretty well and she hadn't seen her in months...

This had probably been a bad idea but it was too late to back out now.

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After saying goodnight and after Jeannie and Ryan have headed upstairs, Chris and Jack go outside by the lake. It's still warm outside, even with the lake so close, and the only thing that can be heard are the crickets and the sound of the waves.

"So," Chris comes up to Jack and slides her hand in his. "How'd the cross-examination go?"

Jack gives her a bemused smile. "Well your brother didn't run off to find one of your dad's guns, so obviously it didn't go too badly."

He lets go of her hand so he can wrap his arm around her waist. "It went all right. I think he's still going to be suspicious about some things, and things we don't agree on, but we seemed to have some kind of an understanding. It wasn't exactly a CTU interrogation."

"Thank God for that," she says with a snort. Then she looks up at him with a keen interest. "Did you tell him anything about why you left CTU?"

"Just that I couldn't do field work for medical reasons, and that I wanted to have a life and spend time with my family, which CTU didn't allow me to do. Did you talk to Jeannie?" he asks.

"Yeah, I did." She relaxes a little, resting her head on his shoulder. "I told her the same thing when she asked."

"Well at least we have our stories straight," Jack says with a smile. "Mostly Ryan was just worried about you working at CTU. I think he wanted me to try and talk you out of it."

"That's not surprising." Another reason why she was reluctant to tell him much about her work or what's going on in her life, even if it did drive a wedge between them.

"If it makes any difference, I said I wasn't going to encourage you to leave. I tried to explain why you'd want to work there, but I don't think he bought it."

She looks up at him with a smile and gives him a small kiss. "It does." Lacing her fingers in his, Chris adds, "He doesn't like that I went back there. I don't expect that to change any time soon."

Or ever.

"It's going to take him a while to know that you're going to be okay, that you're going to be happy," he says, squeezing her hand. "I couldn't lie to him and say that things hadn't been kind of rough in the last few months, but I did tell him that they're a lot better now."

"What did you tell him?" Nothing they had discussed would really explain why she'd been going through a difficult time recently.

"Not much. I mentioned that a friend of ours--someone not working at CTU--died a couple months ago, but nothing else specific. I told him I couldn't tell him any more than you could."

"I didn't tell him about that," she admits quietly, all at once defensive and guilty.

"If he asks, you could say that you were busy at the time, helping with the arrangements. And it's something that's believeable that you wouldn't want to talk about. Anyway, he knows that much," Jack says with a slight shrug.

She nods and falls quiet, trying to relax now that the evening was over.

After a moment, "So, what do you think?"

He gives her a smile. "I think even with the awkwardness, I like your family. It's just going to take a while for things to be comfortable between us."

"You like them?" She asks, surprised but smiling. It's not that she expected him to say otherwise but sometimes, with the way Ryan could be, she wasn't sure.

"Yeah. I mean it's not like your brother and I were arguing or anything, which is a pretty good start at least." His smile turns wry. "No blood, no bruises, no broken bones; turned out pretty well, I think."

"That's only because Ryan and I haven't had a chance to talk much yet," she says dryly, only half-joking.

"Am I going to have to have one of those elaborate first aid kits on hand?" he says, raising an eyebrow.

"Being prepared is always a good idea," she tells him, wrapping her arms around him. "But at least the worst is over, you've met pretty much all my family."

"Yeah, though one of them still doesn't know my real name." He moves, wrapping his arms around Chris from behind. "We'll jump that hurdle when we get to it, though. Have you mentioned that to anyone yet?"

"Jeannie asked if Caiti knew about you. I told her that I mentioned to Caiti I was seeing someone, nothing more." She couldn't help but wonder if that was a mistake, maybe she should have said something now. Chris wants to believe she had reasons for doing it, it would be tough to explain without Caiti here and it would have been easier if she could tell them all at one.

"I'm not sure if it's something that's better to mention now or later. I mean right now, they're already finding out a hell of a lot at once, but then if we don't mention it until later, the natural reaction will be to wonder why we left it. Maybe we should just see if there's a moment to mention it. It's not going to be easy either way."

"Yeah." She looks up at him with a teasing smile. "At least Caiti seemed to like from what you said."

That might make it a little easier and, right now, every little bit helps.

OOM: Visiting Family

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