catch22girl | 24 Fic Snippet

This may or may not turn into a longer story.

Characters aren't mine.

I see this happening at some point in the next few hours.

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"You don't care about anyone but yourself," he said while pushing her away. He left the room.

She fumed silently for a few moments, her heart still racing from their kiss. She pressed a hand to her chest, but
she felt her heart jumping under her palm.

"Do you know what I've given up..." she started to say after she caught up to him sitting at his desk.

He turned on her, his expression reminding her so much of her dad that she took a step back.

"Look 'round Kim, there's a lot more at stake here than whever we have."

Whatever We Have. Whatever We Have. The words twisted and slipped around her mind, their meaning just barely
beyond her reach.

"And, Chase, exactly what do we have?" She asked, the wrong time, the wrong place, her heart thudding for an entirely different reason.

"Your problem is you think that everything revolves around you. And it doesn't. Not even close." Chase said, looking down at his notes.

"I don't let people talk to me like this anymore," she said, insulted.

"Don't you even care that your dad is out there putting himself in danger again?" Chase finally exploded at her, standing up, easily towering over her smaller frame.

"I worried about him for a long time and he repaid me by going out and doing the one thing he promised he wouldn't do anymore, which is leave me.

Then, he came back. I wish you could have known him even five years ago, he was so...different." She whispered, stepping closer, trying to touch his arm. "Honestly, ever since he came back from this last undercover job he's been almost unreachable. We promised, he said he wouldn't lie to me anymore, and he's been doing nothing but lying for months now...what happened to him under Salazar?" Kim pleaded to know, her eyes wide with unshed tears.

"I can't tell you," Chase answered, looking away from her.

"Is it a matter of proper clearance?"

"I just can't tell you." Chase said again, trying hard to forget the debrief sessions that somehow yielded very little information. The look on Jack's face the first time he was out, that sick mixture of relief, horror, and anger, that was something he couldn't make go away. There was that way he reached for him, like a lifeline of human contact that made Chase feel way too young.

"How bad was it?" She asked, not entirely wanting to know, but feeling a need to have even a hint of what her dad had been through.

"Kim, you don't want to know,"

There was something in his eyes that frightened her, because she remembered looking in the mirror after shooting Gary and seeing the same vacant scared look.

"Chase?"

"I should be out there with him."

"No, you should be right here, where it's safe."

"I didn't join CTU to be safe." Chase practically growled and walked away.