milliways_bar | (no subject)

Romana thinks about talking to Jack as she doesn't know him at all yet but then again she doesn't want to interupt his breakfast. Decisions, decisions.

Jack's sipping his coffee when he notices an unfamiliar woman looking at him. It's a little disconcerting, so he decides to go with the obvious approach.

"Hello, I don't think we've met."

He noticed. Hooray for that. She smiles warmly. "No, we haven't. I'm Romana."

"I'm Jack," he replies, offering her his hand to shake. "Have you been here long?"

Shakes his hand. "Relatively. This is...hm...either my fifth day or my sixth."

He gives a slight luagh at that. "Yeah, I know time can kind of get away from you here. I've been here..." he thinks a minute; he's been checking his dayplanner every day to make sure he keeps track of how long he's been here, "...about a month now. So I'm assuming you've had someone explain the place to you?"

"Oh yes. Many people have. And in return I end up explaining that I'm a Time Lord from Gallifrey. But for the sake of expediency, I'll summarize. I can travel through space and time, I have two hearts and I can regenerate."

She grins and holds out a paper bag full of candy. "Would you like a jelly baby?"

He's going to pretend like all that made sense. "Sure, thanks." He grabs one and pops it in his mouth. "So...you can actually travel through time?" He's been here a month, and this place just gets weirder every day.

Romana nods and smiles. "I have a ship. It's called a TARDIS which stands for Time And Relative Dimension/Dimensions in Space."

"Excuse me," she says as she walks over to the man.

"I'm sorry to bother you but I'm new here and I have a very dumb question to ask - how do I order something here?"

He looks over at the woman, quickly swallowing his mouthful of toast. There's something about her that seems familiar, but he pushes it out of his mind for the moment.

"Well, you can either ask the bar staff, or you can ask the bar herself," he says, gesturing to the bar top. "I know, it sounds pretty crazy, but it works."

He looks familiar. Or maybe he has one of those faces.

"Ok, that's what I thought."

She turns towards the bar, "So I just ask it for food and it appears? I don't have to push a button or anything?"

He shakes his head. "No, just ask for whatever you'd like. She'll even give you things other than food, sometimes. Though you should know she has a sense of humour, and you may not always get what you want."

"All right."

I hope this guys isn't putting me on.

"May I have chicken ceaser salad and a glass of lemonade? Please?" she asks in a clear but not very loud voice.

After a moment it appears.

Chris blinks.

"Thank you," she says to the bar and then turns to Jack with a laugh in her voice, "Thanks."

He smiles back at her. "Told you it would work. Though as I said, sometimes she won't give you what you ask for if she thinks she knows better. I'll often just let her pick for me, considering she'll just give me what she wants anyway."

"It's a phsycic bar?," she asks before stabbing some of the salad with a fork. It looks good but how will it taste?

He thinks about that for a moment. "I'm not entirely sure. She's definitely sentient. And I think she...knows things about people. I mean, she won't let me eat much junk food, and she'll give me books that I'm interested in--well, usually--so I think she does kind of know the patrons here."

He looks back at her and notces she's kind of looking at her salad with a doubtful expression. "Go ahead, try it. The food here is very good, actually."

At least it's a nice magical bar, she thought.

Chris took a cautious bite of the salad and found that he was right - the food is pretty good here.

After a sip of her drink she says, "You're right, it is good. Although after five years in the Army, pretty much anything is better than the food they served."

His eyebrows lift slightly in surprise--not because she's a woman; that was changing already udring his days in the military--but more because it seems a large coincidence to randomly meet someone with military experience. Then again, this is Milliways.

"You were in the Army?"

She nods.

"Yes, sir. I attended West Point and then did the required five years in the Army before retiring. You?"

He nods. "Army as well, though I started as a basic recruit. I stayed for about ten years before I went into the reserves." He's not sure whether to ask about her experience as she's likely to ask him for the same information, and that's where he'd have to get creative.

She takes a few more bites of her salad before asking more questions.

"What did you do while in the Army? I was an MI Officer."

[OOC: MI = Military Intelligence]

He thinks a moment; the fact that most of what he'd done was classified--not to mention his own slightly wary nature--means that he has to tread carefully. "I was in Special Forces, so I could tell you, but..." He leaves the rest of the rest of the old joke purposely hanging.

Chris laughs.

"That's what I tell people whenever they ask too much about my current job. But Special Forces, very cool. My brother wanted to go into that but my dad was having none of it. Eventually, he wisely decided it wasn't worth giving our dad a heart attack over and became an MP instead."

[OOC: MP = Military Police Officer]

He smiled. "If everything in Special Forces wasn't classified to the hilt, and your brother could actually know more about it, he'd probably be glad he became an MP instead. It's not an easy job."

Chris takes some sips of her lemonade and nods a little.

"I know. Or, more precisely, I know from the way my dad acted. Because of his job he knew a lot about what the guys in Special Forces had to do and he didn't my brother anywhere near that."

He looks at her curiously. "Oh, really? What business was your father in?" he asks, noticing her use of the past tense.

"He worked for CTU - the Counter-Terrorism Unit. It's the domestic arm of the CIA, I don't know if you've heard of it. Not many people have. But yeah he was what is know as a Regional Division Director - which means he was in charge of all the CTUs in a region."

She pauses to take a few final bites of her salad.

"It's weird because a part of the CIA but it's under the DoD and it's set up more like the FBI. Very strange agency."

He stops eating as a bit of a cold prickle works its way up his back. Her father worked for Division? That was...way too much of a coincidence. Part of him says that her father could always have worked for any of the regional Division offices around the country, but that would be a big coincidence. Milliways didn't go in for coincidences.

"Yeah, I know what it is. Where did he work?" he asks, trying to sound natural.

"You do?," she asks. Chris could swear she saw something flicker across his face before he said that.

That familiar face.

"He worked in LA," she replies, not wanting to give more information out.

"How do you know about CTU?"

Regional Division Director for LA... He tries to kid himself that it could be any other Division director they'd had in the time he was at CTU, that he doesn't know what year she's from, it could be someone from after his time, even...

But it's not working, because he realizes why she looks familiar. Because she looks like her father, the father she keeps referring to in the past tense. They have the same eyes. And in her eyes he sees the ones that looked at him with such terror on that morning in September in the trainyard.

He summons what he hopes is a genuine, polite smile. "Because I worked there. My name's Jack Bauer, by the way."

"I knew it!," she says.

"I'm sorry but it's been driving me nuts why you look so familiar. I think Elaine... or maybe Kim mentioned you were here last night."

She extends her hand, "My name is Chris Chappelle. Pleased to meet you, Jack."

Christine Chappelle. That's it, this really is Hell.

He hadn't gone to Ryan's funeral, hadn't been able to look his children in the eye, and here he was actually forced not only to look at her, but to talk with her, to try and act normal with her...

No one must have told her yet, about the role he'd played in her father's death. Ryan must be delighted to see her, and Jack fervently wishes he could share even a little of that, but he can't. He's never wanted to leave the bar more than he does now. Let her and Ryan have their reunion, without his presence to spoil it.

He takes her hand, willing his not to shake, and he purposely holds hers a little tighter than he usually would. "Nice to meet you, Chris. So you've met Kim and Elaine already? Have...have you seen your father yet?" Another thought hits him. "How do you know who I am?"

She was starting to get confused and a little worried about Jack's reaction. She had heard rumors about Bauer. Most in Division thought he was a mentally unstable loose-canon. Chris had taken them with a grain of salt, considering the source.

Now she wasn't so sure.

Chris always prided herself on having a good handshake so squeezes Jack's hand a little harder than she normally would - partially to meet his grip and partially so he'd get the point.

With a smile and a clear voice she responds, "Yes, Elaine and Kim were the first people I met here. They told me my father was here and went to go get him for me. And as for knowing you, well I work at Division in LA. At least for now."

Kim sees Chris and her dad talking.

She walks over because she's not sure what Ryan's told Chris and her dad looks almost scared.

"Oh, dad, you've met Chris."

He should feel ashamed that his own daughter has to rescue him, but at the moment he's too shocked ot dissemble, and so he's grateful for the distraction.

He turns to Kim with a smile. "Hi, sweetheart, I heard you two have met already."

Kim nods, "Yes."

She smiles at Chris. "How are you finding Milliways?"

Chris isn't entirely sure what's going on here. She's almost certain Kim popped in to help her father -- but for what?

"Hello, Kim, it's nice to meet you again. Thank you for all your help last night. As for Milliways it's very nice," she says.

And very strange, she mentally adds but doesn't say.

"I think I am going to go find my dad now. It was very nice seeing you again."

Chris turned and looked and Jack, a polite smile on her face. "It was nice meeting you, Jack."

He smiles and nods, more sincerely this time. "It was nice meeting you too, Chris. I'll see you around." Knowing this place, I won't be able to miss you.

She nods.

"See you around," she says before leaving.

As Chris walks away, Jack realizes that Kim is still standing there, looking at him with concern. He can't talk with her right now, he needs a few minutes alone to think, to absorb this new development. He also needs to get out of the bar; his head is beginning to throb, and the noise isn't making it any easier.

He gives her a weak smile, sliding off his bar stool. "I'm going to go upstairs and take a nap, okay sweetheart? I'll see you later," he says as calmly as he can, then gives her a little wave as he turns and heads for the stairs (http://www.livejournal.com/users/action_antihero/6342.html). He knows he's running away, but at the moment he can't think, and he doesn't really want to talk about this until he's got things straightened out in his own head.