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knitwitficsFandom: 24, Young Wizards, Milliways
Characters: Jack Bauer, Nita Callahan
Rating: PG
Summary: Nita Callahan comes to work at CTU: LA, having known him for years...but about a year and a half before Jack enters the bar for the first time.
Challenges: Written for a challenge given byadiva_calandia.
Originally written: July 17, 2005
Characters: Jack Bauer, Nita Callahan
Rating: PG
Summary: Nita Callahan comes to work at CTU: LA, having known him for years...but about a year and a half before Jack enters the bar for the first time.
Challenges: Written for a challenge given by
adiva_calandia.Originally written: July 17, 2005
"Jack? The new intern's here. Nita Callahan, this is Jack Bauer."
She forces herself to smile politely, not let recognition cross her face because she knows if anyone will catch it, he will. It's difficult and easy at the same time; familiar and strange. Like CTU itself. It both does and doesn't look like she's always imagined, though never had ever really described the room to her. Strange that she'd heard so much about what happened here, but nothing about the place itself. Sleek, with brushed metal railings, and exposed ductwork, smooth glass and computers and viewscreens everywhere. She's an actor who knows the play but is only seeing the set for the first time, wondering where her marks are and how she'll have to interact with the props.
The blue-green eyes are familiar, but there's a hardness, a distance she's not used to. This is the man who will eventually know what wizardry can do, who will hug her, murmur calming words to her when she cries, put his life in her hands more than once, call her his surrogate daughter--but not now. She's a bit part player in this drama, meeting the star, the one who hasn't any idea that she exists.
She shakes his hand, knowing how it’ll feel before they make contact. Knows what the tattoo on the inside of his left arm looks like, knows there’ll be track marks on the inside of his elbow, knows tonight he’ll toss and turn, sleeping fitfully because he always does. Memories swarm back; sitting next to him looking up at the stars, watching him hit the wall during the werewolf attack, the feel of his arms around her as she cried on his shoulder, saying goodbye to him, welcoming him back, hearing his heart beat again because she urged it to. She knows all this, but he doesn’t know that she knows; can never know, because it would change the future.
That polite smile, a conscious effort to keep her voice steady, a conscious reminder not to address him as ‘Jack‘. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Bauer.”
Really, she knows that doesn’t know him at all, all she‘s learned is what he‘s let her see. But she has a feeling that as Sept. 19th gets closer, she’ll learn it, find the character behind the lines and stage directions, as opening night approaches. And she’s not sure she wants the curtain to go up at all.
She forces herself to smile politely, not let recognition cross her face because she knows if anyone will catch it, he will. It's difficult and easy at the same time; familiar and strange. Like CTU itself. It both does and doesn't look like she's always imagined, though never had ever really described the room to her. Strange that she'd heard so much about what happened here, but nothing about the place itself. Sleek, with brushed metal railings, and exposed ductwork, smooth glass and computers and viewscreens everywhere. She's an actor who knows the play but is only seeing the set for the first time, wondering where her marks are and how she'll have to interact with the props.
The blue-green eyes are familiar, but there's a hardness, a distance she's not used to. This is the man who will eventually know what wizardry can do, who will hug her, murmur calming words to her when she cries, put his life in her hands more than once, call her his surrogate daughter--but not now. She's a bit part player in this drama, meeting the star, the one who hasn't any idea that she exists.
She shakes his hand, knowing how it’ll feel before they make contact. Knows what the tattoo on the inside of his left arm looks like, knows there’ll be track marks on the inside of his elbow, knows tonight he’ll toss and turn, sleeping fitfully because he always does. Memories swarm back; sitting next to him looking up at the stars, watching him hit the wall during the werewolf attack, the feel of his arms around her as she cried on his shoulder, saying goodbye to him, welcoming him back, hearing his heart beat again because she urged it to. She knows all this, but he doesn’t know that she knows; can never know, because it would change the future.
That polite smile, a conscious effort to keep her voice steady, a conscious reminder not to address him as ‘Jack‘. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Bauer.”
Really, she knows that doesn’t know him at all, all she‘s learned is what he‘s let her see. But she has a feeling that as Sept. 19th gets closer, she’ll learn it, find the character behind the lines and stage directions, as opening night approaches. And she’s not sure she wants the curtain to go up at all.
