Story [24] Everybody Dies (Jack & Tony. Day 7 Speculation)

Title: Everybody Dies
Author: karebear
Rating: PG-13
Summary/Notes: Tony & Jack, Day 7 speculation
Spoilers: Nothing you couldn't have picked up from commercials during football games
Disclaimer: I don't own it. Any of it.

"All the decisions in your life have brought you to this place."
- Babylon 5


Jack shrugs into the bulletproof vest and emerges from a little used access hatch, still agile enough even as he knows he's getting too old for this. The orange light silhouettes the man standing at the edge of the building. He turns around, spreads his arms, in a gesture of peace. Or surrender.

Appropriate that they should do this at sunset, the end of another of those impossibly long days that shapes their lives and changes the world. Those days that shouldn't happen once in a lifetime, but for Jack, and for Tony, there have been too many to count.

He hopes he can end it here, for once and for all. He can't do this any more.

Tony takes a step forward, and Jack can see his face. He looks like hell. The gun in Jack's hand is a comfortably solid weight.

With his left hand he touches the bead in his ear. It isn't connected to anything.

Tony shakes his head, a harsh smile on his face. "No. You came alone. You came alone because despite everything, you still believe in honesty and honor. You think it's what keeps you a good person, even with everything you've done. You forget, Jack, I know you, better than anyone. I'm the only one who could, anymore. I'm just like you."

"You're nothing like me," Jack growls. His gun moves slightly, tracking Tony's movement. His finger twitches on the trigger, but he doesn't, can't pull it. Not yet.

"Why? Because I switched sides? Because I no longer have the blessing of the American government?" He laughs. "What's government, Jack, really? How many years has it been since you've set foot on American soil? Come on, at least I stayed when everything was falling apart."

Tony's laugh is rough and bitter, and despite himself, Jack wants to drop his gun and run the short space across the rooftop to comfort his friend. Because the laugh is so familiar it aches under his skin. Because this is Tony. And because he's laughed like that, in waking nightmares in unfamiliar beds in more countries than he cares to count, the choking, humorless laugh that is the only way he can prevent himself from crying.

"Why're you doing this, Tony?"

Without shifting his gaze, he is aware of Tony's hand tightening around his weapon. But the gun isn't even drawn.

"Look around." Tony sounds more exhausted than Jack had ever thought a man could sound. Especially Tony, with his perpetual sense of humor and optimism. Even after Michelle's funeral, he'd laughed, telling stories about the things the two of them had been able to do when they weren't at CTU. He'd had more than enough alcohol in him. Did that matter? "What happened to us, Jack?"

It is that question that finally breaks through, and Jack takes a step forward, shaking his head, though his gaze, and his gun, won't break away from Tony eyes. "I don't know, man," he admits, sounding hollow.

Below them, sirens scream, converging in the empty parking lots worlds below them. Just because he's turned off his phone and not told anyone where he's going doesn't mean they couldn't find him. The U.S. Government has gotten good at hunting down Jack Bauer.

When did this all start? Was it when Teri died? Or Michelle? Was it going to jail, charged with treason, charged with defending your wife? Was it China?

Was in the very first time he tortured an innocent man? Or was it when he missed his daughter's birthday, or his mother's funeral?

"We sold our souls for college tuition and a uniform," Tony observes. "We just didn't know it at the time."

What he's saying makes so much sense. But Tony has killed thousands of people today, all of them American citizens Jack has sworn to protect.

"That doesn't give you the right..."

"I know. But Jack, everybody dies."

Tony's movement is sudden, and blurry, in th

 

*gasp*!

You know, I never questioned whether Jack could shoot Tony if it became necessary. But you know it's gotta hurt. I am desperately hoping that there is a damn good reason Tony appears to be working for the wrong side. I am praying that he's a double agent, still working for the US Government in some capacity. They like to mess with our heads, you know?

I've been catching up on past seasons of 24, since the stupid writer's strike postponed season 7 for a whole year, and that little two-hour thing back in November wasn't enough for me. As a result, now I don't sleep at night. Jack invades my dreams and makes me chase terrorists with him all night long.

That was a very well-written piece, and I think you captured both Jack and Tony very accurately. I like how you pointed out that the US Govt. was getting good at tracking down Bauer. It does seem that way, doesn't it? And how Jack seems to spend more time on foreign soil -- in exile, no less -- than on American soil.

It's an interesting commentary by the writers and producers -- that our best heroes sometimes have to go against the "rules" to get things done, and then, the only thanks they get for averting near disaster and certain doom, is, at worst, a charge of treason; or, at best, a life in exile.

Tony is one of my favorite characters (other than Jack -- Bill Buchanan, and David Palmer being my remaining favorites.) It is so going to break my little heart to find out he's really gone over to the other side.

Anyway, pointless rambling aside, I loved it!

 

Well done, dramatic scene, karebear. It appears Tony has really lost his mind. I don't say that lightly. He's been through a lot. He is completely disenfranchised at this point.

I like how you had Jack show sympathy, but not jump into Tony's delusion.

This was another sad moment for Jack. He has to kill another friend.

 

Thank you so for reading. I'm glad you loved it!

I started this story as a way to try to figure out what that reason might be. And I came to the conclusion, that for Tony, it's not the "wrong side" but the "other side." The real danger in terrorism is that the perpetrators will always believe that they are doing the right thing. I think Tony has finally hit a point where he can no longer support the U.S. Government. As a former agent for CTU, he's seen up close and personal exactly how far that government will go. Add to that everything that they've taken from him, and the only thing he feels he is still capable of doing is removing that government from its position of power. That's not to say that he's right, or that that I'm right about his state of mind, but nevertheless, there we are. (How's that for pointless rambling?)

I think you're exactly right. Tony has lost his mind, because of everything he's been through, but I think Jack has too. They are both equally broken, and the really sad thing is that they are both clinging to their sanity because they are honorable men who each have a line that they absolutely will not cross. For Tony, that line is supporting a government that does the things the U.S. government does. I think he's seen things that Jack hasn't because he stayed while Jack was on his world tour. For Jack, it's abandoning service to his country (They can keep pulling him back in, over and over, no matter how often or how far he runs). It doesn't help that Tony is "second" to Jack. Jack can (and has) gotten away with things that Tony never ever could. We see 24 through the filter of Jack, so Tony, being opposed to Jack makes him "wrong", but I don't think he's necessarily deluded (or at least no more deluded than Jack himself, who we can all admit has more issues than a magazine rack). I actually think he's fully conscious of the choice he's making, and that he's to the point where he would enact a "suicide by Jack" scenario. I think he's lost too much to be able to go back and he's enough of a good person not to want to go forward on a terroristic path.