AUTHOR'S NOTE: Major spoilers for this season's finale of '24', and honestly not much of a stand-alone piece. I was just so profoundly affected by the season finale - I cried, I stopped breathing, I fell off my chair... basically, the best hour of television I've ever watched - I knew there was some kind of a reaction-fic coming sooner or later.
Silence and Tears
by Alicia McKenzie
He needed to get up, Jack Bauer thought. There were things he needed to do. Things that needed to be done.
It was just that he couldn't think of what they were. Couldn't focus enough to do that. Sad, really. His thoughts were running in sluggish circles.
Shattering themselves on the woman in his arms. Only when he tried to think beyond the moment, though. If he stayed here, stayed now, nothing would change.
If he didn't let go. If he stayed here, with Teri. If he never had to tell Kim that her mother--
--that her mother--
Breathe! his body screamed at him. Jack sucked in a harsh breath, letting his head fall back against the wall. The spots faded from his vision. He could hear his heartbeat, thundering in his ears. The pain in his side was sharp and searing again, reminding him.
The dock. If Drazen had killed him. If Nina's cover had been preserved. If she'd never needed to run.
If.
There was no if.
There was only this. Here. His wife--his pregnant wife in his arms. Bullet holes in her shirt, and blood, and--
Dead. Teri was dead.
He needed to get up.
He needed--
He really needed to stop crying. Another sob, soft and broken, tore through him, and he clung to her more tightly.
How many people died because of you, Jack?
Nina. The mole. Nina. The traitor he'd trusted with everything, this whole long day--
"I'm so sorry--Teri, I'm so sorry--" More apologies. Words, useless words, but they spilled out of him in a cracked whisper, unstoppable.
Palmer was safe, Drazen was dead, and none of it mattered. All of the mistakes and betrayals, the wheels within wheels--none of it was real anymore, there was only this. Only silence and tears and the crushing knowledge of his own failure.
And Teri, his beautiful Teri, lying so still in his arms.
They weren't going to get that second chance after all.
Voices, calling his name. Tony, maybe.
Jack squeezed his eyes shut.
He needed to get up.
He couldn't.
He couldn't let go.
fin