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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"We can set the table," Jack says, thinking that a moment with Ryan might not be a bad idea.

"Yeah," Ryan says, not looking at either of them. He really wanted to go for that run. Hell, he wishes he had a good excuse to leave the room.

Without saying another word, Chris heads out of the kitchen and up the stairs. It would be tempting, right now, to just send Jeanine and Tori down and skip breakfast. She's not entirely sure that she won't.

There's a moment of silence after Chris leaves, filled only by the sound of clattering dishes as Jack and Ryan get out plates for breakfast.

"She really has missed you; not telling you things hasn't been easy for her," Jack says, softly.

"Wait until she's in danger and you find out about it weeks later before talking to me about what's easy for her, Dr. Phil," Ryan says, turning to grab the cups.

He's half tempted to throttle him and his soft-spoken crisis busting manner.

"Would you rather that you never hear about it, either because she knows you're going to flip out, or because you two don't talk at all?" Jack says, an edge in his voice, his look direct.

Ryan puts the glasses down on the island and looks at him. "She used to talk to me. We always argued, but it was different."

He's surprised at the argument they just had, the anger he felt and her biting answers. "Caiti was always the secretive one."

"Do you really need to know everything about what's going on? Aren't there things you decide not to talk about?" Jack asks, curiously.

"Small things, sure, but Chris has known about the big events almost immediately. It's not unreasonable to want to know about your sister's boyfriend before they move in together," Ryan tries to keep his voice calm.

"What about your work? How much can you talk about your cases?" Jack asks.

"You think this is about the secrets she has to keep for national security? Are you being purposely obtuse?"

"Have you considered that some of the other things she hasn't told you about might be connected to her job and have something to do with national security? That there isn't much of a separation between personal life and work?" he asks, his expression hardening, though he's trying not to let Ryan's tone get to him. "Do you really want things to turn out like your father and his brother?"

"What the fuck do you know about my father and his relationship with Uncle Sean?" Ryan's voice drops slightly. "Chrissy's been telling you family secrets and she barely talks to us."

"No, your father told me. He said that he had a brother he hadn't talked to in years, and he sounded like he regretted it quite a bit." It had been enough of a separation that Ryan hadn't called him to say goodbye when he'd had the chance. Then again, Ryan hadn't called his kids either.

Ryan narrows his eyes at him, "When did he tell you that? And if you were that close, how could you have missed his funeral?"

"We weren't that close; it was a brief, offhand comment he made maybe a couple weeks before his death, one of the very few times he ever let something slip about his personal life and he changed the subject right after," Jack says, sternly. "And even though we weren't close, I would have been at the funeral except we were still dealing with the outbreak of a deadly virus, and I was the only department head left at CTU. Meanwhile, my second in command, the second in command of comm and two of our lead computer analysts were also out of commission. CTU was decimated that day."

In that moment, Ryan reaiizes he was wrong about Jack's passiveness; the man in front of him seems to change as he talks, and he can see the Special Forces side now. He wasn't only at CTU, he was a department head, and a field operative. He doesn't look away, but it takes effort to maintain eye contact. "I can understand those circumstances." He carries the cups over to the table. "I can't talk about my cases, but my cases don't follow me home."

"And they don't always follow you home from CTU, either. This one did. It's the price of the business and you learn to deal with it," Jack says flatly.

"Have cases followed you home?"

"A couple. Depends on your definition." If it was not being able to forget work when you got home then it was a hell of a lot more than a couple.

He nods, any other comment would be too revealing, and all he can think is that it doesn't matter to him the details of his sister's life, he just wants her to know that she might push her family away, but they'll be there if she needs them, there's no other choice.

"Something smells good," Jeannie says, holding onto Tori's hand as they enter the kitchen. She gives Ryan a curious look but her expression remains calm and pleasant.

Chris follows after her sister-in-law, not saying a word to anyone. At the moment, she felt too stressed and tired to bother being pleasant to anyone who isn't Tori.

Taking a seat across from her niece, she pours herself a glass of juice but doesn't grab any of the food.

"Chris felt inspired," Ryan kisses Jeannie's cheek and the top of Tori's head. He walks around and stands next to Chris, looking toward her. "I need your opinion on something before breakfast." He can't think of a good excuse to talk to her alone again and he has the feeling that she'll refuse his request. Some of what Jack said was too close to the truth and losing her seems a very real possibility.

She was expecting this but thought they'd at least get through breakfast. Maybe it was better this way, since another tense meal wasn't something she really wanted to go through again.

Taking a drink of her orange juice, she nods. "All right."

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