Chris

Jack's sleeping when raised voices start filtering into his dreams, voices of the guards at the prison in China, yelling questions at him. He jolts awake, taking a moment to remember where he is, and he quickly realizes that though he's awake, the voices haven't stopped.

Sitting up, he can hear Chris' voice, angry, though it's hard to make out the words, and judgeing by the tone of the voice answering her, she's arguing with Ryan. He gets to his feet, wiping the sleep from his eyes and trying to push the remnants of the dream out of his head as he opens the door, making his way down the stairs.

"Chris?" he says a little sleepily, once he reaches the bottom of the stairs.

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"It happened two months ago, Ryan! What did you want me to do?" She has more to say but the creaking stairs catches her attention and she just hopes it's not Tori.

Hastily flipping the pancakes onto a plate, she's almost out of the kitchen when she hears her name. "Jack. Morning."

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"I wanted you to make an effort to be part of our lives. I don't know why I bother." He interrupts her and notices the noise at almost the same time. If it's Jeannie, she'll demand an explanation. By the time Jack gets downstairs, it's obvious Ryan's attempting to pretend that they weren't just arguing. He doesn't like to lose control and especially not in semi-public.

"Chris made coffee."

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Jack shoots Chris a curious look, but doesn't say anything about the argument, for the moment at least. "Great, I think I could use some. What are you two doing up so early?"

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"I'm making breakfast," she says with a glance towards Jack, when she speaks again her voice is dripping with sarcasm, "Ryan's keeping me company."

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Ryan shoots her a glare and gets another mug from the cabinet. "Here," he puts down the mug in front of Jack, his movements tense and he uses a slight bit more force than necessary when he puts the coffee pot near him.

"Jack can keep you company, now, my dear elder sister."

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Great, he's obviously come down in the middle of quite the fight. He pours himself a cup of coffee as he tries to think of anything he can do to keep the peace; all that crisis negotiation training and he's not sure how to keep his significant other talking to her brother.

"You're not staying for pancakes?" he asks, mildly.

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Pointing and telling Chris that's just the behavior he meant when he talked about Jack acting like a therapist would be immature.

"I'm not obligated to have breakfast this early."

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Jack refrains from mentioning that that's a fairly fancy way of expressing an attitude that's more appropriate to a belligerent teenager. "I just thought you might want to spend time with your sister," he says, unable to keep a slight edge out of his voice.

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Not even pausing from dishing out the food, Chris rolls her eyes at him and mutters, "Whatever. You do what you want."

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"Why not, you always do," Ryan answers her, not meaning to ignore Jack, but reacting like he didn't hear him.

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This time she does turn to look at him, if only to set the rest of the food on the counter. "I am so sorry for not keeping you up-to-date with everything that goes on in my life especially since you're being so understanding now."

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Jack's pretty tempted to just turn and head back up to bed and leave them to duke it out, but then he's not sure he wants to see Chris and Ryan not speak again after this.

"Guys, would you just stop for a minute?" he says, rubbing his forehead. Christ, it's way too early for this. "I've seen hostage negotiations that went better than this."

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Ryan does not pout. He does however fold his arms and lean against the counter behind him. "This doesn't concern you."

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Chris gives him a sharp look, momentarily tempted to slap him upside the head. "Will you stop?"

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Ryan glares in return. "I'm not the one who's pushing you away."

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"Yeah, well..." the words die on her lips as she looks at Jack and her brother, realizing she doesn't want to have this argument. Not now, when she hasn't even had anything to eat. Not with Jack in the middle anot not when she can barely remember what they started arguing about in the first place.

"Y'know what? Forget it. I'm going to go get Tori and Jeannie before the food gets cold." Assuming they're not awake already.

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

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"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.

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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.

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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.

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"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.

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"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.

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