DR: Jack and Beckett, Post-"Knockout"

[trigger_man]

It always starts out as an ordinary day.

Jack's got his bag slung over his shoulder, ready to head out to his world for a while.  Only when he opens the door, it's not the tiny apartment he's rented in Lexington that he sees.  Instead, it's sidewalk and tall apartment buildings.  Turning his head, he sees yellow cabs and New York licence plates, behind him apparently an ordinary phone booth.

Something cold settles in his stomach; there are only a few reasons for the bar to have dropped him off somewhere other than the place where he'd walked in, and none of them are good.

Following a hunch, he covers the sidewalk between him and the nearest apartment building in a couple strides, eyes searching the nameplates by the door, until he finds the one he's looking for.

K. Beckett.

The bar dropped him off at her home, not the precinct, not a hospital.

(not a morgue, a church or a cemetery)

Telling himself that it can't be that bad if he's been kicked out of the bar at her apartment building, he presses the button to buzz her apartment.

If only the butterflies in his stomach were listening.

Comments

[trigger_man]

The one word isn't much, but even its tinny sound is enough to let him know that it's her answering. Not that that helps calm him much.

"Beckett? It's Jack Bauer. Can I come up?" he asks, trying not to sound agitated, but probably failing miserably.

[needthepractice]

"Jack?"

There's no disguising the surprise in her voice; she can't pretend it hasn't been ages since she's even seen the man, much less heard from him, and now he's standing on the street, several stories below. And then the panic sets in, the realization that he hasn't seen her like this (few people have, but that's not the point), and she's reaching for the sweater that she's draped over the back of a nearby chair, using it to cover her shoulders.

"Yeah, okay, sure," she hastily adds, and presses the second button to let him in.

[trigger_man]

Jack has his hand on the door handle before he even hears the buzz, and the instant he hears the door lock click he pulls the door open and hurries across the lobby.

He's upstairs and knocking on her apartment door within a few minutes, his heart beating faster not just from hurrying. He needs to see for himself that she's okay.

[needthepractice]

She's pacing back and forth on the other side of the door, arms tightly crossed over her chest - or as tight as she can cross them, at least, without it hurting her shoulder. The scar tissue's been a bitch to try and counter, but she's not going to let the pain show in her face, just like she's going to make sure she's recovered from the startle caused by the knock before she opens the door.

"Hi," she quietly says, managing a smile. Despite everything else, she can't say she isn't glad to see him.

[trigger_man]

"Hey," he says with a slight smile, even as he gives her a careful once-over. She looks tired and drawn; not like her usual self.

"Turns out I was in the neighborhood, thanks to the bar," he says, suddenly unsure of how to ask if she has any idea of why the hell he was dumped at her doorstep. "What's been going on with you?"

[needthepractice]

"I didn't know that was even possible," she admits, glancing down at her feet, idly scuffing the toe of her slipper against the floor.

It's such a loaded question that she doesn't even know how to answer it at first, and while her initial response is to laugh, she curbs that long enough to consider it carefully, brows furrowed. "Not much," she adds, shrugging the better shoulder. "What's up with you?"

[trigger_man]

Jack watches her reaction carefully. The way she looks down at the floor and then her carefully considered answer doesn't exactly convince him that there isn't something she's not telling him.

"Not much; I was heading back out to my world when the door opened right in front of your building instead. Anything happened that would make the bar do that?" he asks.

She's a friend and he doesn't want to grill her, but also really wants to know what's going on, for the same reason.

[needthepractice]

Her default response is a little more defensive: This, you mean? She's not actively wearing bandages anymore, but the scar on her chest is still fairly dark, fresh and new, and ultimately, it's not the only thing that he needs to be made aware of.

"I've been on leave for the last month," she finally adds, with a conceding sigh. "Because of something that happened at Roy's funeral."

[trigger_man]

Oh that gets her a concerned look from Jack. Particularly if whatever it was was bad enough to have her on leave for a month when her Captain had just died and the precinct was in some turmoil.

"Why, what happened?" he asks, his stomach tightening as he anticipates her answer.

[needthepractice]

It's a long time before she answers, enough time for her to take a step back further into the room, bracing herself against the back of the chair and leaving him to close the front door behind himself so they're not talking about this in the hall.

"At the cemetery," Beckett murmurs. "Someone took a shot at me."

[trigger_man]

It feels as though someone's just doused him with icewater, his entire body flushing cold from his torso out to his fingertips. He has to take a step back, lean his back against the closed door for a moment until he regains his balance.

She'd been on leave for a month and still looks wan. They don't give you leave for a month if someone takes a shot at you and misses.

"They didn't just take a shot--they hit you, didn't they?" he asks, his voice sounding hollow in his own ears.

[needthepractice]

"They didn't just take a shot," Beckett echoes, nodding slowly, the words uttered so quietly that it's almost as if she's speaking them from very far away - that's how it feels, at least, when the only other thing she can hear is the sound of her heartbeat rushing in her own ears.

"That's the main reason I've been on leave," she admits, as if attempting to gloss over the situation will make it less severe. "To take some time. Recovering."

[trigger_man]

"Where were you hit?" he asks, taking a few steps forward, reaching out to touch her arm as if to reassure himself that she was okay, or at least on the mend.

"Did they catch the guy?"

[needthepractice]

"He was - they haven't found him yet," Beckett responds, moving to shrug her arm free, but she's only repositioning, fingertips curling around the neckline of her shirt and gently pulling it down.

Her eyes are glassy as she averts her gaze, glancing to one side, unable to look at it, the scar that creates that divot over the curve of her breast. Over her heart.

[trigger_man]

His eyes follow her hand, follow the dip of her neckline to the red, raw, still-healing wound over her heart.

"God, Beckett," he says, his voice suddenly going hoarse, his throat starting to close.

For a moment, he can almost picture her lying limp and still on a gurney as they rushed her into surgery. Then the mental picture is replaced by the memory of the way Teri had felt in his arms when he'd found her, shot in about the same spot.

He could have lost her. Could have lost her and not even known it.

He wants to grab her, pull her to him and hold her tight, but just manages to stop the impulse and instead reach out again and gently start to pull her toward him.

[needthepractice]

It's easier when she doesn't have to see it, even if she can always feel it there, itching beneath her skin, making her flash back to the moment when she'd felt the bullet burn through her chest, her life slowly leaving her body.

She releases her hold on the neckline of her shirt, arms folding in against her chest when he reaches out to pull her in. Shrinking in on herself.

He smells like New York, subway steam and street grit and something else foreign, like worn leather, and she turns into him, fighting to keep her face from crumpling.

[trigger_man]

He's trying very hard to do the same thing. She's been through a lot--she's still going through a lot--and she doesn't need him going to pieces on her shoulder.

That doesn't keep his eyes from stinging with unshed tears, or his voice from becoming hoarse as a lump swells in his throat.

"We could have lost you," he says, his voice little more than a whisper.

[needthepractice]

It seems wrong to crack a joke somehow, but she can't help it. It might not be the appropriate moment, but it's worlds better than falling apart as she swallows thickly, one hand resting on his shoulder to squeeze.

"Who, me? Takes more than a bullet to get rid of me," she murmurs.

And yet it almost had.

[trigger_man]

Jack lets out a short laugh, though his voice is still thick when he says, "Apparently."

It's still not much of a comfort, knowing that she'd been shot a month ago, and he hadn't known about it. If she'd been killed, would the bar have found some way of letting him know sooner? Or would he have walked back out to his world, still not knowing what had happened?

"Good thing, too, as I don't know what I would have done if anything had happened to you."

[needthepractice]

"Stop that," she whispers, shaking her head slowly and pulling back enough to look at him, a small sidelong expression.

"I'm fine, I promise. Maybe a little more dinged on the outside, but I'm still in one piece, alright?"

[trigger_man]

He pulls back, but keeps his hands on her uppper arms. There's still a little furrow of concern on his brow.

"Yeah, you are. Your doctors said you'd make a full recovery?"

[needthepractice]

"More or less," Beckett murmurs, looking up at him with a smile that she hopes is reassuring enough.

"I - I'm sorry," she adds. "I didn't mean to interrupt your - leaving."

[trigger_man]

It's not the unqualified "yes" that he would have preferred to hear, but he'll take the answer she can give him.

"You didn't interrupt. Not like I was going to my world for anything particularly important, and I haven't seen you in a while. You're a good friend of mine, Beckett; you're more important than anything I have waiting for me in my world."

[needthepractice]

The sincerity of his words throws her for a loop; there's no question that he's someone she cares for a great deal, but they don't often have a reason to say the words to each other - and probably fortunately so.

"Thank you," she quietly replies, glancing down at the floor, tucking a piece of hair behind one ear.