24: 6:58 AM - Jack (1/3)
Jun. 3rd, 2007 01:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
knitwitficsFandom: 24
Characters: Jack Bauer, Ryan Chappelle
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A three-part story dealing with the events of the last moments of episode 3x18. A look into the minds of Jack Bauer and Ryan Chappelle in those last couple minutes.
Warnings: Character death, violence, language
Originally written: April 2004
The only thing he can think at this moment is that he has to be dreaming.
Of course he knows he's not dreaming, that he's awake. No dream would be this real. He wouldn't hear the sound of his feet on the gravel of the train yard this clearly, feel the weight and the solid chill of the gun in his hand.
But part of him won't accept it. There's no fucking way he's pointing a gun to Ryan Chappelle's head, execution-style.
He has to be dreaming.
Was it only a couple hours ago Chappelle was giving him the third degree about his...habit? About killing Nina? That Chappelle was threatening to take him off the team, and he'd been thinking that Chappelle was such a prick, the biggest dickhead he'd ever worked with, because there was no way he was leaving CTU in the middle of a major operation?
He'd actually thought to himself, "I wish he'd just fuck off and leave us alone to do our jobs. Just disappear."
And now he's going to make Chappelle disappear. Permanently. But there's something in him that's still trying to find some way out. Some way they can fake it, some way to get out of doing this. Because only a few hours after thinking he'd like to wring Chappelle's fucking neck, he's stalling with his finger on the trigger.
He realizes he's been thinking of Chappelle as just "Ryan", for almost the last hour. He always called Ryan by his first name to his face, but usually used "Chappelle" in his mind, or when talking to the others at CTU, the name usually thought of or said with the kind of tone that places "that asshole" unspoken before the name.
But somehow he can't think of that now. Not when he's seen that look in Ryan's eyes, when they heard the fateful words over the radio: "There's no one here." When both of them knew what had to be done.
He's seen that fear in a lot of people's eyes over the years, but it's never made him feel ill, like it did at that moment. Seriously, like he was literally going to puke. Just seeing the look on Ryan's face, that knowledge that he was walking toward his own death, that there was no way out, except in oblivion...
He's seen it before. But it's always been one of the bad guys. And in a small, small way, he's enjoyed seeing that look. Usually because the bad guys deserved it.
This isn't the first time he's had to kill an innocent either. He's done that too. Too often, in fact. But the explanation that it was all for the greater good was usually enough, even when he woke up at night, seeing their faces in front of him, the sound of their voices dying away as he woke, sometimes years later. He would never tell anyone, but that was one reason it wasn't hard for him to get hooked, to fool the Salazars. Though he knew what the stuff did to a person, though he told himself it was only for the mission. But deep down he also knew, every time after the first time he shot up, that it would also help quiet the voices in his dreams.
Ryan may not be a complete innocent, but he's not a field agent either, not someone who's had to accept that every op may very well be their last. Will he be there, with the others, tonight? If there is a tonight?
Something keeps holding him back. He knows too much about the target, even though he's realized he doesn't know Ryan at all. He'd always assumed Ryan was married, though he's just realized he never even looked for a wedding ring. But even though the only personal things he knows are what Ryan just told him, it was enough. Too much. Enough to make him human, not just "that asshole from Division". No family, except one brother he never talks to, no friends except work, but really, how "friendly" can they be? Did Ryan ever go to a colleague's wedding? Does he have a regular poker night with a couple of the guys at Division? Somehow that doesn't jive with his image of Chappelle, but then nothing is at the moment.
Time is ticking away. He can't stall--shouldn't stall. There's nothing anyone can do now. The only thing he can do is give Chappelle a quick end. Something in Ryan's head has to be fighting this, screaming that this isn't the end, that little voice bent on self-preservation at whatever cost, that refuses believe this is the end, because it can't imagine just turning off, the nothingness after the gunshot. He knows this, because he's heard the voice himself, behind whatever part of his mind was planning how to escape from every sticky situation he's ever been in. Felt that desperation, that there has to be some way out.
But he has no time, no fucking time right now; he has to do this now, put Ryan out of what must be abject misery.
"God forgive me," he says, hearing his own voice as if from a distance, and then the sound of the gunshot shatters the dream.
Characters: Jack Bauer, Ryan Chappelle
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A three-part story dealing with the events of the last moments of episode 3x18. A look into the minds of Jack Bauer and Ryan Chappelle in those last couple minutes.
Warnings: Character death, violence, language
Originally written: April 2004
The only thing he can think at this moment is that he has to be dreaming.
Of course he knows he's not dreaming, that he's awake. No dream would be this real. He wouldn't hear the sound of his feet on the gravel of the train yard this clearly, feel the weight and the solid chill of the gun in his hand.
But part of him won't accept it. There's no fucking way he's pointing a gun to Ryan Chappelle's head, execution-style.
He has to be dreaming.
Was it only a couple hours ago Chappelle was giving him the third degree about his...habit? About killing Nina? That Chappelle was threatening to take him off the team, and he'd been thinking that Chappelle was such a prick, the biggest dickhead he'd ever worked with, because there was no way he was leaving CTU in the middle of a major operation?
He'd actually thought to himself, "I wish he'd just fuck off and leave us alone to do our jobs. Just disappear."
And now he's going to make Chappelle disappear. Permanently. But there's something in him that's still trying to find some way out. Some way they can fake it, some way to get out of doing this. Because only a few hours after thinking he'd like to wring Chappelle's fucking neck, he's stalling with his finger on the trigger.
He realizes he's been thinking of Chappelle as just "Ryan", for almost the last hour. He always called Ryan by his first name to his face, but usually used "Chappelle" in his mind, or when talking to the others at CTU, the name usually thought of or said with the kind of tone that places "that asshole" unspoken before the name.
But somehow he can't think of that now. Not when he's seen that look in Ryan's eyes, when they heard the fateful words over the radio: "There's no one here." When both of them knew what had to be done.
He's seen that fear in a lot of people's eyes over the years, but it's never made him feel ill, like it did at that moment. Seriously, like he was literally going to puke. Just seeing the look on Ryan's face, that knowledge that he was walking toward his own death, that there was no way out, except in oblivion...
He's seen it before. But it's always been one of the bad guys. And in a small, small way, he's enjoyed seeing that look. Usually because the bad guys deserved it.
This isn't the first time he's had to kill an innocent either. He's done that too. Too often, in fact. But the explanation that it was all for the greater good was usually enough, even when he woke up at night, seeing their faces in front of him, the sound of their voices dying away as he woke, sometimes years later. He would never tell anyone, but that was one reason it wasn't hard for him to get hooked, to fool the Salazars. Though he knew what the stuff did to a person, though he told himself it was only for the mission. But deep down he also knew, every time after the first time he shot up, that it would also help quiet the voices in his dreams.
Ryan may not be a complete innocent, but he's not a field agent either, not someone who's had to accept that every op may very well be their last. Will he be there, with the others, tonight? If there is a tonight?
Something keeps holding him back. He knows too much about the target, even though he's realized he doesn't know Ryan at all. He'd always assumed Ryan was married, though he's just realized he never even looked for a wedding ring. But even though the only personal things he knows are what Ryan just told him, it was enough. Too much. Enough to make him human, not just "that asshole from Division". No family, except one brother he never talks to, no friends except work, but really, how "friendly" can they be? Did Ryan ever go to a colleague's wedding? Does he have a regular poker night with a couple of the guys at Division? Somehow that doesn't jive with his image of Chappelle, but then nothing is at the moment.
Time is ticking away. He can't stall--shouldn't stall. There's nothing anyone can do now. The only thing he can do is give Chappelle a quick end. Something in Ryan's head has to be fighting this, screaming that this isn't the end, that little voice bent on self-preservation at whatever cost, that refuses believe this is the end, because it can't imagine just turning off, the nothingness after the gunshot. He knows this, because he's heard the voice himself, behind whatever part of his mind was planning how to escape from every sticky situation he's ever been in. Felt that desperation, that there has to be some way out.
But he has no time, no fucking time right now; he has to do this now, put Ryan out of what must be abject misery.
"God forgive me," he says, hearing his own voice as if from a distance, and then the sound of the gunshot shatters the dream.
