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5 Times Jack Didn’t Kill Nina (And One He Did)
I. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this scared in his life. This day, this nightmare, is already changing him more than he’d thought was possible. Gaines is saying something, more directions, and he instructs her to turn right. He almost wants the monster to keep talking, just so he won’t have to hear Nina, hear the accusations that strike deep in his chest.
"All night you’ve been feeding me that someone inside the agency wants Palmer dead." Her voice is strangled, terrified and betrayed. "Your daughter’s missing...no one can be trusted, not even me!" God, please, just – I trust you, Nina, of course I do, but you need to stop before I break, before I get them killed. "Is it all a lie, Jack? Or just some of it?"
"Please, Nina, don’t make this harder than it already is." Somehow he sounds calm. Of course he’s trained for this, for staying level headed in stressful situations – stressful? There needs to be a new word for this – but the look on her face makes him want to cry, to force her out of the car, to kiss her, anything to make it go away. She’s saying something and she’s right, it doesn’t get any worse; not seconds later when she nearly crashes the car – he almost wishes she had, she could have escaped (but Teri and Kim, fuck, I’m gonna be sick and I swear to god I am going to kill this man).
It doesn’t get any worse until they pull up to a construction site and he realizes that he was right, he has to kill her, and the flak jacket might not be enough to protect her. "Your choice, Jack, Nina or your daughter-" SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP forgive me Nina please be okay I’m sorry SHUT UP bang bang bang and he can’t look as she tumbles down the hill.
II. She’s getting away. The pain and betrayal is put on hold as he grips the gun, but the disbelief is hard to mask as he looks at her face and shoots. Nina. He’s shooting at Nina, his partner, friend, lover not anymore and she’s shooting back, focused. Focused on killing him. Why does he feel like laughing? She swerves and he’s already halfway out before it registers that she crashed.
Pressing her against the metal of the car, he sees that she’s bleeding, and the instinctive urge to wipe it away rises. Swallowing it down like bile he holds her throat and she’s gripping his arm, tight, and now more than anything he wants to feel it go slack. She’s talking and he can’t hear, can’t hear anything but the ringing in his ears and I trusted you.
"I was just doing my job," and that’s it, he loses it, he doesn’t give a damn about her job because he trusted her, loved her, shut up shutupshutupshutup the irony is choking him and how many people died today because she was doing her job? "Walsh, Jamey, Ellis, how many others?!" She’s scared but he’s not satisfied yet.
"How many people died because of you, Jack?" His name on her lips and he wants to tear it off. Others are arriving and Mason’s talking and I need to kill her how can I kill her?
Kim. Kim is here. Nina – Nina who tried to kill Kim – he can’t do this, can’t kill her, not now, not with Tony here and watching, not with his wife and daughter inside. He drops her and she coughs, agents flocking in, and he just looks at her because he loved her and she betrayed him.
III. They’ve been here before, in every sense; his gun at her head, her trembling, at his mercy, on her knees in front of him no, not now, he can’t think about that now. Her fingers are twined at the back of her skull and he wants to move them just so he can push the barrel directly into her scalp and pull the trigger, god he wants to pull the trigger.
Today she’s back but she’s not Nina, he doesn’t know who she is, because somehow in the last eighteen months Nina has become a monster but now the word is too shallow to describe her; describe the look on her face as she shuffled into CTU, the smirk in the interrogation room, you’re just gonna have to follow my lead. He can’t see her face now but the way her fingers are clenched and shaking gives him enough of an image, and it isn’t the image of a monster.
His hand is shaking too, less subtly than hers, and he’s gripping the gun as tightly as she’s gripping her own skin. Somewhere it registers that he’s as terrified as she is and he tries not to throw up because why is he scared of killing her and was she scared when she killed Teri was Teri on her knees was Teri shaking like she is like I am?
Suddenly it’s all jumbled up and Nina is Teri and Jack is Nina and Jack is Teri and he can’t shoot her so he handcuffs her instead and wonders if that makes him a monster.
IV. There she is – strapped to her seat and not breathing as he rushes forward, releasing her and laying her down. Not breathing and pale; he could turn around, walk away right now and come back in five minutes. He doesn’t think anyone will blame him, not really, at least not if he lies and says he woke up just a few seconds too late and dammit, if only he could have saved her.
No one would blame him but himself, that’s the problem with having a conscious, he thinks, so he presses her down and whispers for her to come on, she can’t die on me now, not yet. Not when it wasn’t his finger that pulled the trigger. A plane crash? Now he’s even more determined, because a fucking plane crash, that’s too good for her, death is too good for her, wake up, dammit, come on. Checking her throat – no obstructions, and without letting himself think about it he lowers his mouth lips to hers chapped and dry too damn familiar.
Still not breathing and he’s panicking now, just slightly, somehow not even thinking about the bomb and her information anymore will she just WAKE UP already? She’s doing this to deliberately piss him off, it’s another one of her games, he’s breathing into her again and suddenly she gasps, rolls over, and coughs. He lets go of her face before she can realize he was clutching it and saving her, because I don’t want her to owe me.
V. Chase is gone and they’re alone, she’s already pleading with him. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her sound so desperate as she insists that she can help find Amador, he wants her to stop but the fear in her voice is as good as any heroin so he lets her go on. It strikes him how young she looks in the dark, wide eyed and terrified but not stopping, determined to save herself, the way she always does, the way he always lets her. "I can help you find him," the fear's dissipating so he cocks the gun, and her voice is shaking again. Jack, I don’t want to die.
She doesn’t want to die. That’s the closest she’s ever come to explaining, earlier she said I’m sorry Jack and he wanted to believe her so he kissed her again. Kissing her, that was better than heroin, because heroin made him forget but kissing her made him feel. She doesn’t want to die, so why isn’t he killing her? He thrusts the gun forward and I can help you she’s shaking and pleading and he shouldn’t believe her but he has to so he reaches for the phone. Relief washes over her face and he figures she’s planning her next move, because that’s what she does, that’s what they do.
VI. This time it’s over. She knows because he’s not shaking.
It’s Kim’s fault, really. She shouldn’t have gotten involved in this. On the other side of the room she can see where she shot Teri and can’t quite blame her for wanting to avenge her mother, but she should have realized that it was pointless.
Nina’s never really been scared when she’s not around Jack. Not truly scared. She’s felt the adrenaline and the anxiety but the only time she’s feared for her life is when Jack has a gun at her. She’s scared now.
It’s just them – poetic justice and all of that. The way it’s going to end (and she knows that this time it’s going to end) is so perfect that it feels like it should have been scripted, right down to the location. Where it started and where the game began.
He moves forward and blocks the surveillance camera – oh, yes, Jack, I remember. It’s so quiet. She always thought she’d go out fighting. The blood running down her skin might suggest that she did, but she should have fought harder. Should have killed him when she had a chance.
Looking at her, so steady, none of that familiar panic in his eyes, and she wants to say something. She doesn’t think there’s really anything left to say, though. God, irony’s a bitch. The room is growing colder with his gaze but she’s still not shaking; probably should enjoy this before the hell that awaits her.
You don’t have any more useful information, do you, Nina. She doesn’t, and he knows it. I do. He’s looking at her like he’s trying to decide and she’s sick of the pretenses, so she twitches her arm toward the gun. Just get it over with.
"No you don’t." She barely has time to close her eyes before the bullet rips through her skin. Blood spills out and if she were alive she’d point out that monsters don’t bleed.
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Can you tell I love it?
And this "if she were alive she’d point out that monsters don’t bleed." was masterful. Wonderful ending.
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I think IV is my favourite but they are all wonderful!
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