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Leaving L.A. isn’t quite as easy as Jack had planned.
He steps out of the bar into a world that for him is almost a year behind him, one that in some ways he’d moved past and in some ways he hadn’t even started to. The Valencia bombing isn’t quite as fresh in his memory, though there’d still been times in the bar when a bright flash of light from somewhere out of the corner of his eye brought him back to that suburban yard, the sight of the mushroom cloud rising on the horizon momentarily filling his vision as though he was back there, watching it all over again.
But for the most part, the event feels distant, even if that distance hasn’t made it much easier to think about. The deaths of nearly 20,000 people and climbing never is.
The world he walks out to, however, isn’t even 48 hours beyond the blast, and so when he steps onto the sidewalk in front of his apartment building--the same sidewalk that had traded itself for the bar so many months ago--it’s a world still in the middle of trying to cope with it.
The first thing he should have realized back in the bar is that the train and inter-city bus service has only just resumed, and is still in chaos. None of the routes heading north are operating, whether they go through Valencia or very far to the east or west. So far the wind is blowing radiation to the west, toward the ocean, but no one seems to want to take the chance that the wind will change. Buses and trains are having to be re-routed around it, taking up space on highways and rails and at stations that don’t have enough tracks or platforms for the traffic.
Not only that, but there are throngs of people competing for every space available. People who’d been stranded when flights had been grounded, when all transportation in and out of the city had ground to a halt for two days. Then there are those that are just leaving, those that aren’t confident that the threat really is over, and are trying to get away from a city that’s been the target of so many attacks over the years.
This is the world that Jack walks out to, and finds himself trying to cope with. That morning he takes one step into Union Station and walks right back out, pressing his back against the station wall. The number of people heading inside as he’d approached should have been a clue, but the number of people packed inside had caught him by surprise, sending his instincts into overdrive.
The Greyhound terminal isn’t any better and Jack walks away with the certainty that he won’t be getting out of L.A. any time in the next couple days. Not when simply being in the stations with all their possible exits and hiding places threaten to send him into an anxiety attack.
Maybe it’s better this way, anyway. If the government’s looking for him, they’ll be expecting him to leave the city as soon as possible. Wait long enough and they might assume they missed him, or that he has no intention of leaving L.A.
It’s four days before he tries again, four days that make it amply clear that spending that time in the bar hasn’t acclimatized him to being free very much at all. While the bar allowed him more freedom than his cell, it still had boundaries, still had places where you could go no further and just ended up heading back where you came from. It also had its own strange kind of order. You were locked in or allowed out by the whim of the Landlord, Bar provided the food and sometimes chose for you. Strangely enough, for someone who’d spent the previous twenty months in a concrete box that was barely eight feet by eight feet, who had been severely punished when he’d disobeyed an order, this had been comforting. It had been just a little freedom, a little choice, giving him a chance to remember what both of those concepts were like.
Outside, though, the thought that he could go anywhere is a little frightening. The lack of boundaries, the abundance of choice is almost paralysing. Faced with so many decisions and no crisis or order pushing him toward one, he finds it difficult to decide, and he hates himself for it. Hates himself for letting his tormentors win, in the end, by creating a prison for him in his own head.
The plan he’d come up with in Milliways is his only guide, and he clings to it, not considering a deviation. It narrows his choices, gives him one step to focus on at a time; a technique he’d found was the only way to stay sane in China. Think only of this one moment, this one task. Don’t imagine what will happen after until you get there, or the thought of the unending scope of everything in front of you will break you. One step at a time.
His plan holds no place for finding Audrey again, for looking up Kim. Chloe had told him after he’d faked his death that Kim had moved away from Valencia after Chase had left her. He has to believe that going back would be too painful for her, and she wasn’t anywhere near the blast. As for Audrey...there’s no way he can help her. How can he be any use, when just getting through the day is a struggle, when he jumps at every unexpected movement, when he keep looking over his shoulder?
No, they’d both been hurt enough because of him. Better that he stay away, draw any danger that might follow him away from them.
So four days after leaving the bar, he's sitting in Union Station, pretending to read a newspaper as he waits for a train to take him east. His ticket's for Tucson; after that, he's not sure where he'll go. Just as long as it's not L.A.
He steps out of the bar into a world that for him is almost a year behind him, one that in some ways he’d moved past and in some ways he hadn’t even started to. The Valencia bombing isn’t quite as fresh in his memory, though there’d still been times in the bar when a bright flash of light from somewhere out of the corner of his eye brought him back to that suburban yard, the sight of the mushroom cloud rising on the horizon momentarily filling his vision as though he was back there, watching it all over again.
But for the most part, the event feels distant, even if that distance hasn’t made it much easier to think about. The deaths of nearly 20,000 people and climbing never is.
The world he walks out to, however, isn’t even 48 hours beyond the blast, and so when he steps onto the sidewalk in front of his apartment building--the same sidewalk that had traded itself for the bar so many months ago--it’s a world still in the middle of trying to cope with it.
The first thing he should have realized back in the bar is that the train and inter-city bus service has only just resumed, and is still in chaos. None of the routes heading north are operating, whether they go through Valencia or very far to the east or west. So far the wind is blowing radiation to the west, toward the ocean, but no one seems to want to take the chance that the wind will change. Buses and trains are having to be re-routed around it, taking up space on highways and rails and at stations that don’t have enough tracks or platforms for the traffic.
Not only that, but there are throngs of people competing for every space available. People who’d been stranded when flights had been grounded, when all transportation in and out of the city had ground to a halt for two days. Then there are those that are just leaving, those that aren’t confident that the threat really is over, and are trying to get away from a city that’s been the target of so many attacks over the years.
This is the world that Jack walks out to, and finds himself trying to cope with. That morning he takes one step into Union Station and walks right back out, pressing his back against the station wall. The number of people heading inside as he’d approached should have been a clue, but the number of people packed inside had caught him by surprise, sending his instincts into overdrive.
The Greyhound terminal isn’t any better and Jack walks away with the certainty that he won’t be getting out of L.A. any time in the next couple days. Not when simply being in the stations with all their possible exits and hiding places threaten to send him into an anxiety attack.
Maybe it’s better this way, anyway. If the government’s looking for him, they’ll be expecting him to leave the city as soon as possible. Wait long enough and they might assume they missed him, or that he has no intention of leaving L.A.
It’s four days before he tries again, four days that make it amply clear that spending that time in the bar hasn’t acclimatized him to being free very much at all. While the bar allowed him more freedom than his cell, it still had boundaries, still had places where you could go no further and just ended up heading back where you came from. It also had its own strange kind of order. You were locked in or allowed out by the whim of the Landlord, Bar provided the food and sometimes chose for you. Strangely enough, for someone who’d spent the previous twenty months in a concrete box that was barely eight feet by eight feet, who had been severely punished when he’d disobeyed an order, this had been comforting. It had been just a little freedom, a little choice, giving him a chance to remember what both of those concepts were like.
Outside, though, the thought that he could go anywhere is a little frightening. The lack of boundaries, the abundance of choice is almost paralysing. Faced with so many decisions and no crisis or order pushing him toward one, he finds it difficult to decide, and he hates himself for it. Hates himself for letting his tormentors win, in the end, by creating a prison for him in his own head.
The plan he’d come up with in Milliways is his only guide, and he clings to it, not considering a deviation. It narrows his choices, gives him one step to focus on at a time; a technique he’d found was the only way to stay sane in China. Think only of this one moment, this one task. Don’t imagine what will happen after until you get there, or the thought of the unending scope of everything in front of you will break you. One step at a time.
His plan holds no place for finding Audrey again, for looking up Kim. Chloe had told him after he’d faked his death that Kim had moved away from Valencia after Chase had left her. He has to believe that going back would be too painful for her, and she wasn’t anywhere near the blast. As for Audrey...there’s no way he can help her. How can he be any use, when just getting through the day is a struggle, when he jumps at every unexpected movement, when he keep looking over his shoulder?
No, they’d both been hurt enough because of him. Better that he stay away, draw any danger that might follow him away from them.
So four days after leaving the bar, he's sitting in Union Station, pretending to read a newspaper as he waits for a train to take him east. His ticket's for Tucson; after that, he's not sure where he'll go. Just as long as it's not L.A.
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He relaxes before he takes a seat on the bench, putting a few good feet between them. Jack's reading a newspaper, and despite the fact that it's been many long months since he’s been home, Bill imagines he has his undivided attention.
If he hasn't run yet, maybe he doesn't plan to.
Eyes forward: "Hello, Jack."
From:
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The man sits down next to him, and Jack’s eyes snap up to his face when he talks.
“Bill. What’re you doing here?”
It’s not the most friendly greeting in the world; probably colder than Bill deserves. It comes out that way before he can stop and let reason take over from his rattled nerves, though.
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“I didn’t come to take you back.”
Jack should know that, but it doesn’t hurt to say it. He reaches inside his jacket, and pulls out a manila envelope.
“I thought maybe you could use these.”
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He doesn’t need to pull anything out if the envelope to see what’s in it; it’s pretty obvious just from looking in. Bundled cash, the familiar dark blue cover of a U.S. passport, and a stack of plastic cards that he’s guessing are other forms of I.D.
He looks back up at Bill’s face, his expression wary. “Who’s this from?”
There are two possible sources that he can think of, and he’s not sure that either is entirely welcome.
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His stoicism betrays little, even when he does turn to meet Jack’s guarded mien.
“You don’t have to worry about anybody keeping tabs on you. That’s just a gift, from two friends. Though, I’m not sure how long the IDs will last you; she wanted me to be sure to tell you to be discerning, and use them while you can.”
His careful frown turns into a small smile.
“And to be careful. In her own way.”
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As much as he’s touched by their generosity, though, there’s part of it he can’t accept.
“I can’t take the money, Bill,” Jack says firmly, but quietly. He’s picked a seat as far from other people as possible but he doesn’t want to take the chance of someone overhearing and getting the wrong idea. “It’s too much. I can manage on my own.”
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The possibility was always there that Jack would refuse, but Bill was prepared to be firm about it.
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“Not yet. But she’d want you to take that envelope.”
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“I’m not your responsibility, Bill,” Jack says, quietly. He’s never been good at accepting help; right now, more so than usual. Especially when he’s not sure if there isn’t a little...guilt, maybe, on Bill’s side of the equation. He hadn’t ever asked Bill how hard he and Chloe tried to get him out of prison, though he doesn’t really expect them to have been able to do it. They didn’t have the right kind of contacts, the right connections to get it done.
He won’t pretend he hasn’t felt a couple moments of anger when he remembers how everything seemed to have just gone on without him, but he’s talked himself down from getting bitter at the two people who probably didn’t have much of a choice. He can save it for people like Heller who might have actually been able to do something.
But he really doesn’t want Bill and Chloe to feel like they have to do this, like they have something to make up for.
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“Is that what you think this is?”
If Jack were to ask, Bill would be lying if he said this wasn’t borne at least in part out of his feelings of guilt over Jack’s time spent in China. Bill respected him, came to think of him as a friend, and knowing he left Jack to whatever horrors he suffered in China continues to gnaw at him to this day. Regardless of what the outcome was, that isn’t something Bill will get over any time soon.
Still, guilt isn’t the reason he and Chloe spent the last three days combing bus terminals and train stations looking for Jack.
“Jack, I know what happened isn’t something that we can just forget. But, at the end of the day, I hope you realize that the people in your life break down into more than just enemies and allies. You still have friends here, and we want to help.”
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There’s another short pause before he folds the envelope and tucks it in his bag. “Thanks.”
After a moment, Jack asks, “You going back to CTU?” He’s not sure if Bill can, really, but asking is preferable to sitting there in silence.
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“No. No, I think that place is finally rid of me for good.”
His expression turns wry.
“What about you? Where do you plan on going?”
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At the moment, his main plan is just to get out of L.A. Once he’s done that, he can start thinking about the next step. Providing he can convince himself to keep going.
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He looks at his hands.
“I’m sorry about Audrey, Jack.”
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“Yeah. At least she can get the help she needs here.” He isn’t sure whether Bill knows about his visit to Heller, but he very well might. He has no illusions that Chloe hasn’t been looking for him, and doubtless Heller’s filed another restraining order or something by now.
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Bill exudes calm and control in the way he speaks, even though they both know Audrey’s future is as out of their control as the weather. It’s empty consolation, but it’s well-meaning.
“Are you going to be okay?”
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“Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
Jack isn’t really sure he actually believes that; he’s far from okay now, and he can’t imagine being able to pull himself out of the deep, dark hole he’s in now. If anything, he finds it all too easy to imagine it just getting deeper.
But while he and Bill have been through a lot together even in such a short time, he doesn’t know Bill well enough to tell him the truth. Though right now, it probably doesn’t matter how well he knows someone; his pat, easy answer would fall from his tongue no matter who was asking.
He’s never been good at showing weakness or vulnerability. After two years of those things being used as weapons against them, it’s almost impossible to break the habit of not showing them except on the rare occasion when he slips.
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He nods, but knows better than to believe Jack’s words. There’s really nothing else to say.
He’ll be okay.
“I’m sorry I won’t be able to watch your back out there, Jack. But if there’s anything I can do for you, if it’s within reason, all you have to do is ask.”
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Glancing up at the monitor displaying the departure times, his train still isn’t listed as boarding yet, but it’s close enough that he should probably head toward the platform. It’s at least close enough that he can make a polite retreat.
“I’d better be going,” Jack says, hesitating for a moment before he extends his hand. “Thanks, Bill.”
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“Yeah, so should I.”
He looks back over, eyes drifting to Jack’s hand. The scarred flesh is impossible to hide, no matter how many layers of long sleeves he throws on. It’s a stark, grotesque reminder of what Bill couldn’t keep him from, and where any other person might hesitate, Bill reaches immediately to clasp the proffered hand in a strong shake. His eyes he keeps focused on Jack’s, neither a smile nor a frown on his face.
“No need to thank me, Jack.” Smirk. “Just send me a postcard when you get where you’re going.”
(He knows he never will.)
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He gets to his feet, slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder before he grabs his duffel. “Good seeing you Bill,” he says with a short nod, before he turns and walks toward the platform and the train that’ll take him away from the city that was once home, but doesn’t feel like it anymore.
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