“Oh my god, that’s Jack Bauer.”
Edgewood furrowed his brow. “From this far away? You sure, Brasher?”
“I-I don’t know. I just have a feeling.” Julia couldn’t quite understand it. Couldn’t understand why it wasn’t just the glimpse of the man in the crowd, but somehow she’d sensed the fugitive’s presence.
And seeing as there were no other active cases right now that needed their attention, as well as the fact that the government was at a total loss for where he was, Edgewood put out an alert, hoping that Brasher’s hunch would play out. If it did, it would be a huge step forward in her career, if not, a huge hindrance for causing a commotion.
—
“Shit, Jack, I’m picking up police frequencies in your area. They’re headed your way, someone’s spotted you.”
“Damn it…” He muttered.
Chloe grumbled in his ear. “I told you this was a bad idea, you knew that coming to LA was going to be a huge risk.”
He sighed. He’d only done it to look in on Kim, just from afar, just to know that she was okay. And to his relief, she was. Jack had seen Kim and Stephen go into an obstetrician’s clinic after dropping Teri off at kindergarten. The tears had welled in his eyes so fast, he’d had to resort to focussing on his breathing to prevent himself from running in there after her. He couldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t keep disappearing and reappearing. Even though she’d live with the uncertainty of whether or not he was alive, she could at least grieve him a little, start trying to move on.
There was a shoot-to-kill order on his head. He’d nearly started World War Three with Russia. He’d known the consequences when he’d gone to do it, consciously ignored every voice of reason in his head, and Chloe’s voice of reason in his ear. But being the loyal friend she was, after negotiating release from prison, she’d continued to help him evade authority, because although seeing him go off the rails in New York that day had scared her, unfortunately she’d seen Jack suffer far too many times to let him throw everything away. She’d guided him to hide-outs and secluded cities, normally following from a safe distance. Morris had threatened to leave her, threatened to take Prescott with him, far, far away.
“He’s my kid too, you can’t take him away from me.”
Morris shook his head. “Love, you’re still helping the man who got you arrested. It’s for Prescott’s own good that he doesn’t have to watch his own mother taken away in handcuffs again. It’s not just about the legal ramifications either, you know that Jack has made a lot of enemies in his lifetime. What if they were to come after the three of us? What then? You know he doesn’t exactly like that you’re doing this either.”
She pursed her lips.
“You have to make a choice Chloe, him or us.”
“Just…just one last time. Let me help him get to Los Angeles so he can see his daughter. Then I’ll tell him he needs to find his own way, which I know he can do. Then I’ll stop this crap, let him go, go get a normal job, and leave him be.”
He let out a long breath, seeing the sincerity in her eyes.
“Morris, please.”
They were both simply worried for each other. He was worried for Jack too. But he’d made his mistakes and needed to pay the price. Even if the price simply was living in hiding for the rest of his life. Morris sympathised, couldn’t bear to think of having a life so marred by loss and pain. But making sure he didn’t lose his wife and son was part of subsiding that fear.
“Fine. Get him to Los Angeles. But that’ll be the last time you help him.”
Jack ran as fast as he could, trying to mix in with amongst the crowds on the busy streets. But in the background he could hear sirens, he could see police cars cordoning off intersection corners. He tried to think of who could have spotted him. His picture had been plastered everywhere across the media in the days following the incident. Those first few months had been difficult. He’d dyed his hair, left whatever housing he could find only for bare essentials, if that. Jack had driven faster and more erratically than he ever had before. But eventually, the story died down. Of course he was still a wanted person according to the law, but the chance of a civilian eagerly looking to be the one that found the elusive Jack Bauer had waned. Nonetheless, he couldn’t let himself be caught by anybody. He didn’t want to be captured and regarded as some menacing spectacle.
And despite the fact that he had very little left to live for, Jack didn’t want to die for nothing. He’d told himself that when he’d been sent to China and he insisted on living by that ethos for the rest of his life. If there was an opportunity to sacrifice himself for some greater good, perhaps to ease tensions between the US and Russia, he would take it in a heartbeat. If there was an opportunity to die to protect his few remaining loved ones, he would take that too. Any opportunity to die for some cause, to die knowing he was doing some good in the world would suffice.
—
She’d dashed off so quickly, before they could even plan their formation.
“Brasher!”
“I know where he is!”
—
“LAPD, freeze.” A woman’s voice called behind him suddenly, panting a little. It was familiar to him. But he wouldn’t dare make a sudden move, lest he be ridden with bullets before he could figure out who his maker would be.
Slowly, he raised his hands.
“Turn around, slowly.” Again, the voice was so prominent to him. He knew who it belonged to, but it made no sense because she was-
Alive.
And standing right in front of him.
Jack’s eyes widened. The officer’s did too.
Julia Brasher had been shown photos of former federal agent Jack Bauer many times in her first months as a police officer. The photo of his face had struck her as something significant. Of course the things he was being charged with were definitely nothing to laugh at or ignore. His history, his story had been fascinating to her but at the same time, had shaken her to her very core. Namely because she’d felt like she’d heard it before. Like a bizarre sense of deja vu. Julia felt like she knew this man from somewhere besides his wanted alert.
And seeing him before her now was only causing that strange feeling within her to resurge.
No, this wasn’t right. This wasn’t possible. He’s watched her die. He’s held her.
He observed the woman intently, desperate to prove he was wrong. Dark hair was pulled back into a tight, low bun, but the auburn tinges were still clear in the daylight. Her freckled skin hadn’t changed a bit. Nor had her teal eyes, piercing back at him. Under the shell of her ear, he could see a faint, slightly discoloured scar stretching across her neck.
“Trust me, I will get you through this alive. Get on your knees.”
“Renee?” Jack asked, voice breaking.
A pang struck his chest when he watched the gun shake in her grip, heard her breath hitch, even amongst the traffic noise.
“Officer Brasher, do you copy? Officer Brasher, have you apprehended the suspect?” The voice sounded nearby.
Jack didn’t want to leave, couldn’t leave, couldn’t let this go unresolved. But if he didn’t make himself disappear at this moment, he would never get the chance. And seeing how dumbstruck she looked, Jack knew his only opportunity to run was now. He could tell she was wearing a vest, and fired, aiming so it wouldn’t dare harm her in any way, save for a few possible bruises. Scaling the wired fence behind him as fast has he could, Jack ran off, disappearing and blending into the street crowd.
Another officer ran around the corner, finding Julia on the ground, pale as a sheet. She groaned a little, and he located the source of her pain.
“Where’d he go? Where’d he go, Brasher?”
He grunted. “We have an officer down, Bauer has not been apprehended. Repeat. Bauer has not been apprehended.”
In the mean time, Jack had managed to escape the police perimeter through some nearby parklands Chloe had suggested. Being in Los Angeles was still strange to him, bringing back so many memories he thought he’d long since forgotten. But right now that wasn’t his priority, he could reminisce later.
“That was a close one. You’re lucky you know your way around here and that the officer seemed to be in too much shock and let you go. If this was anywhere else you would have been screw-”
“I know Chloe.” He continued to breathe heavily, having run considerably far before turning his comm back on. “But I need you to do something important for me. One last thing, then I give you my word, I’m on my own.”
“Fine.”
“Get me everything you can about an LAPD Officer Brasher and send it to my cell.”
He’d managed to scour the address of Officer Julia Brasher, a cop who’d apparently only been in the LAPD for around six months. But Jack had no doubt that the woman he’d faced today was Renee Walker. After all, it had been about a year since her apparent death. Take into account the recovery from the gunshot, the establishing of her profile, Witness Protection on the opposite side of the country made a lot of sense. The memory lapse seemed to bother him though. She hadn’t recognised him immediately but the reaction was there. It was subconscious, almost. Jack remembered how much blood she’d lost that day. It was a feasible amount to kill her, so maybe an overwhelming sense of weakness and confusion had been enough for them to manipulate her memories. He wondered who had had the thought to put her in Witness Protection in the first place. After all, she wasn’t exactly an active FBI agent when she was in New York that day. Ethan Kanin, maybe? He certainly seemed to be the only one who wasn’t taking any of Taylor’s decisions lying down.
Jack didn’t care about how it happened or why, right now, he cared that it happened. That she was alive.
But she didn’t deserve to live a lie.
She didn’t deserve to have to regress back to some rookie cop.
She deserved better.
The small house she’d been put in thankfully didn’t seem to be guarded, but he’d tried to avoid cameras where he could, slipping in using the flimsier bathroom window. Jack didn’t want to traumatise her, but he also knew that fear could be a trigger for her memories. There was a slowness to her gait as she opened the door, everything completely dark. He felt guilty about shooting her, but he knew there hadn’t been many other options. Or at least, none that he could have executed in such a short time frame.
“Don’t move.” He whispered, pressing the gun into her back. She’d shut the door behind her but hadn’t turned the lights on.
Everything seemed to happen so quickly. The lights came on, he felt his arm twist, and suddenly Jack found himself on the floor. He groaned, feeling the hardwood floor make contact with his back, as the woman pointed the gun, his gun at him. The take-down move had been so instinctive, so swiftly executed. Certainly not something that basic police training would have taught her. Like before, her fingers were shaking. Now that she was out of uniform, wearing a simple shirt and jeans, she looked even more like Renee and his heart twinged.
“Renee, please.”
“S-stop calling me that. That’s not my name. You have me mistaken for somebody else.”
Jack shook his head slowly, seeing the confusion in her eyes, seeing how with every mention of her real name, she was reacting, as though her body was screaming at her to try and think back. He let out a breath. “If the name didn’t mean anything to you, you wouldn’t be so scared. You wouldn’t be so worried.”
She scoffed. “I’m scared because you’re a fugitive who shot me, then broke into my house and held me at gunpoint.”
“I’m sorry for scaring you, but you have to believe me, please. You’ve been lied to. You’ve been manipulated into acting under an alias.”
The way he looked at her, Julia could tell he was begging her with everything he had. Somehow it didn’t seem like delusion though. He didn’t seem crazed or confused. He was telling her like he knew better, like he knew and cared about her.
“I can prove it. Load up my file on your computer, you’ll see that hours before I did what I did, I was present when former FBI agent Renee Walker, when you, died.”
Julia gave him a funny look.
“Cuff me if it makes you feel better.” He raised his hands very intentionally, just as he had when she’d nearly apprehended him. Again, his eyes met hers, and she could see he was so desperately imploring her to at least try to believe him, to at least try to listen.
Shakily, she threw the cuffs in her bag at him, and true to his word, he did them up. Sitting down at the nearby kitchen table, she opened up her laptop, eyes intermittently darting back to him, making sure he didn’t move. Her fingers typed away, accessing the information shared across agencies on Jack Bauer. She clicked on the subsequent link to Renee Walker’s profile and Jack watched her brow knit.
Julia found her face staring right back at her, with a large, red ‘Deceased’ label alongside. She felt her stomach churn as she flicked through her own autopsy photos. Even the scars on her body were the same. But surely this couldn’t be right?
“T-this isn’t real. A-anybody could have fabricated this. It doesn’t prove anything.” Her voice was trembling.
“Tell me this, then. Where’s the scar on your neck from?”
Her hand went to brush along it. “C-car accident. The seatbelt cut me. We were pursuing a suspect.”
“When?”
Julia thought and found herself unable to remember. When had it happened? She could barely remember the car accident itself, but she certainly remembered being told that.
“Because Renee Walker has a scar just like that. From the day you and I met, you were still an FBI agent. I had to shoot you and bury you alive, pretend to kill you, to maintain a cover.”
Her eyes widened. Something about that, as horrific as it sounded, seemed plausible. It wasn’t an outlandish story, it seemed more like a strange memory, like she’d heard it before.
“The scar on your wrist, where’s it from?”
Again, she went to touch it. “T-the other day. Kitchen accident.” Even she didn’t sound convinced. It was far up her forearm and quite deep, not likely caused by a nick with a knife.
“No.” His face softened. “You tried to take your life.” He cleared his throat to strengthen his voice. “You see, Renee, the first day we met, a lot of innocent people died, including your superior, Agent Larry Moss. He was killed by Tony Almeida, a former CTU agent and friend of mine. He was ruthlessly in pursuit of a man named Alan Wilson, who was responsible for the death of his wife.” Jack knew he needed to give as many details as possible, praying that anything would start to jog her memory. “And he didn’t care who ended up at collateral damage because of it. You were the one who interrogated Alan Wilson though. And you nearly killed him.”
Shock seemed to creep across her face. She was the kind of cop to follow the rules and do the right thing. Wasn’t she?
“You were angry. You were shocked at how deep the conspiracy ran. You were asked to leave the FBI afterwards. I was already in a coma, I had no idea. But when I saw you again, a year and a half later, I realised how much it destroyed you. Destroyed you to the point where you wanted to end it all.”
Julia shook her head. “Y-you’re making this up. Y-you’re telling me this to try and get me on your side. You’re trying to make me feel sympathy for what you did so I can let you go. All you’re doing is making up stories about two scars you noticed. Scars that just so happen to be similar to ones this Renee Walker happened to have.” She stood up and pointed the gun at him again. “You’re trying to manipulate me. You’re crazy. And you need to be stopped.”
To her surprise, he didn’t react, but there was still a level of endearment in his gaze. “There’s one more. Let me explain to you one more thing I know, one more thing that proves you are Renee Walker, not Julia Brasher.”
Would he really be able to move on from this? Would he honestly be able to give up and move on? Could he live the rest of his life knowing that she was being moulded to spend the rest of hers falsely?
He sighed. “And if you still don’t believe me, you can call the precinct and tell them you single-handedly shot and killed Jack Bauer.”
The gun didn’t lower, but she gave a slight nod.
“A gunshot wound scar on your chest, exactly two inches below your heart. It nearly killed you. I was there when it happened. After the assassination of IRK President Omar Hassan, we went back to my apartment. You’d had to rebuild a cover with a Russian gang, the leader of which had beaten you and nearly raped you in the past. You had to have sex with him to keep your cover up, in the hopes that we would stop the assassination as well as locate a series of nuclear fuel rods. We managed to find the rods, but couldn’t stop the assassination. It was a sad day. We were exhausted, we were emotional. But by that point, both of us… needed each other.” His voice trailed off.
She went to open her mouth to tell him to stop, but instead found herself needing to hear the end. She needed to know because the part of her which had been telling her that the man in front of her was crazy was suddenly much quieter.
A nostalgic fondness slowly crept across his face. “I realised in that moment after, that I’d never seen you smile like that, that I’d never seen you happy, that I’d never seen you content. And I wanted so badly to preserve that. If I could live in that moment forever, I would.” He bit his lip, suddenly appearing much more grave. “But that moment was shattered when I heard a bullet pierce the window. I-I remember wrapping you in the bed sheets and picking you up. It was a member of that Russian gang. He tried to shoot again, I was so scared. I ran as fast as I could, I got you in a cab to the hospital. Y-you were choking on your own blood. I-I still remember telling you that you were going to be okay, even though I knew you were fading fast. But by the time we got there.” Jack let out a breath. “It was too late. They told me you’d lost too much blood, that you were dead.”
His voice cracked, and Julia noticed how teary his eyes were.
“I-I kissed you goodbye.”
Jack watched her chest start to heave, watched one of her hands ghost over the spot he was referring to.
“A-and I couldn’t live with the injustice. I-I’ve lost a lot of people because of my job at CTU. But losing you was the final push. I threw in the towel. I stopped caring. I know it was wrong. I know it makes me no different than Tony. B-but you have to understand, Renee. Losing you destroyed the final piece of me that was left.”
“No…” She whispered. “No. No. No!”
Her scream echoed across the floorboards. The gun fell to the floor with a clatter as she stumbled back, leaning against a kitchen cabinet and breathing heavily. It came back all at once. DC. The FBI. Larry. Tony. Jack. Being suffocated under the gravel. Swimming towards the boat. The siege at the White House. The hospital. Her apartment. The blood on the floor of her apartment. Ambulance sirens. New York. Jack again. Laitanin. Hassan. Jack’s apartment. The bed. The hospital.
She met his eyes, which now had tears streaming from them. “J-Jack?” Crawling over to him, her hands went to his face, studying him closely. The memories were intensifying, and Jack felt relief course through him as he realised that Renee knew who she was, that it was all coming back to her.
A sob escaped her throat and she flung her arms around him. He couldn’t hug her back on account of the cuffs, but did his best to lean his body into hers.
“I-I’ve got you. It’s okay, Renee.”
“W-witness Protection. I-I remember. T-they put me in Witness Protection.” Renee let out a sharp breath. “K-kept telling me that my name was Julia Brasher. T-that t-they could use me to get to you, b-because they knew you’d eventually come back to LA and Iy-you would recognise me but w-wouldn’t know why. T-they-”
“Shh…it’s okay. It’s over. You know who you are.”
Frantically, she reached for her bag to get the key to the cuffs. When she did undo them, she wasn’t surprised to find them quickly rising to embrace her strongly.
“You’re with me now.”
They held each other for a while, neither one quite wanting to let go or let another moment of intimacy between them be destroyed. When she moved back, Jack noticed her face had fallen, as though something unfortunate had occurred to her.
“S-so the people you killed…I-I mean they told me you nearly started a war with Russia…it was because of me?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I-I don’t know what came over me. I was tired. I was angry. I was sick of letting people get away with things that were hurting other people. The assassination of Hassan was part of a Russian conspiracy. The person who nearly killed you was part of it. Believe me, I went to President Taylor about this, but she was so desperate to have that peace treaty go through…” Jack sighed. “I killed the mole in CTU who was giving the information, I killed Suvarov’s right-hand man, and then I killed the person who shot you. Next person on my list was Suvarov himself. It wasn’t by any means pretty. But these people had to be stopped.”
To his surprise, Renee didn’t seem overly disgusted or upset when he met her eyes again. She seemed to understand, and he realised how much she’d changed from the slightly green agent she was the day he met her. She’d been broken down, she’d been forced to see the horrible truths and intricate scheming going on around her. So maybe it wasn’t a far stretch, considering all that he’d been through, all that he’d seen. It wasn’t exactly ideal, but she trusted that even if he had been a little overzealous, he was well-intentioned. The government had seemed to frame it as some elaborate vengeance on her death, but Renee was relieved to know it was more than that, that it was about justice.
“I-I’m so sorry.” He said shamefully. “I’ve put you in such a difficult position. I don’t want you to feel guilty for causing anything. I’m the one that made those decisions.”
She hushed him. “I-I don’t care. W-we’ve got each other now, that’s all that matters. I know it was more than just about me, I get it now.”
Renee stood, brushing herself off, and starting to shove things into her bag.
“What are you doing?”
“We can talk more later but right now, we need to get out of here.”
He looked up at her confused.
“What do you mean ‘we’?”
“I’m coming with you, aren’t I?”
His face looked bewildered. “You haven’t done anything wrong. You’re not a wanted fugitive, I am.”
“What? You expect me to stay here and live a lie? They want to use me against you, the only way I can stop that is if I come with you.”
“N-no.” Jack shook his head. “But Renee, you don’t get it. You come with me, you’re committing to spending the rest of your life on the run. You won’t be able to pull the ‘undercover’ card, they’ll know you were helping me.”
Renee let out a small laugh. “I-I know that. But I don’t care. We’ve both suffered so much because of our jobs. And yes, maybe we really haven’t spent that much time together. But the few days we did have…we went through so much. We learnt so much about each other. Most of the world thinks I’m dead anyway. A-and I don’t think you would have done what you did if it wasn’t for the fact that you cared about me too, that you feel the same way.”
He shook his head again.
Her hands suddenly cupped his face, her teal eyes endearingly staring into his. “I want to run away with you, Jack.”
His expression was rife with disbelief.
Grinning, she leaned forward, giving him a bruising kiss. His hands went to her waist, and he felt as though he had to pinch himself. The smile he thought he’d never see again was grazing against his. Her body was close to his as they stood, not letting go. They were together. It was as though they were picking up from that morning.
She was serious. And she was right. They weren’t exactly ‘leaving’ anybody behind. Of course, it pained him to know that he’d never see Kim again. But she was an adult, it’s not like she depended on him that much, and really, how many times had he told himself that? And how many times had she simply adjusted to not seeing him? Chloe deserved to not have to worry, after all that she’d already done to protect him. There weren’t exactly many other important people remaining in his life.
Being on the run was something that he’d always envisioned as a lonely, arduous path to an eventual death, be it of old age or by fire.
But being on the run with her?
They could travel, they could see the world, they would have each other’s backs, they would protect each other.
He pulled back and thumbed across her cheek. “Then let’s go.”