agirllost | Lunch with Dad

"You'd have to wait until I was finished with her first," Jack says, darkly.

She remembers her dad's hand on Ramon's throat and how she couldn't let him finish it.

Even though he's far away, she distantly feels Behrooz's discomfort with the idea.

"You shouldn't go anywhere near her," she says finally.

"I don't intend to go looking for a fight," he says, a little tersely, "but considering the size of the bar, if she's Bound, I'm probably going to bump into her at some point. I'm not going to get myself thrown in the cells."

Considering the slightly nauseous feeling he gets just thinking about it, that's one promise he intends to keep, too.

"Yes, but you can walk away, you don't have to talk to her. I don't care about the bar rules, Dad. This is about - " she stops abruptly, realizing she can't finish that sentence.

At one time not long ago, she had to choose between revenge and acceptance.

"She's in our past."

"And if I just walk away there's nothing to discourage her from not trying to pester me or anyone else again, and again. I'm not going to do anything to her--" well, not without provocation--"but I'm not sure I can just walk away every time, either."

She pushes the food further away and folds her arms over her chest.

"Just...promise me that no matter what she says, you won't let it get to you."

"I can promise that no matter what she says, I won't lose my temper." There are a number of ways her words could 'get to him' so he can't exactly make any promises there.

She relaxes her arms and looks at him seriously. "Whatever she says, it's not the truth, it's what she wants you to believe." She says softy, hoping he'll understand.

"I kind of learned that the first time around," he says, though without much force behind his words. He pushes the nub of his hotdog and the last of his fries away; he doesn't have much of an appetite for the rest of it.

She glances away, focusing on the beach and the smelll of the sea.

"I wish you wouldn't give her the chance to hurt you."

"Yeah, well I'm not sure I can avoid it. Might as well just get it all over with once."

Arguing would be pointless and only get them both upset. In this situation her dad will never listen to reason. He doesn't believe in avoiding confrontation.

But if Nina pushes him back into that dark place they all tried to pull him out of, she'll wrap her in flows of air and squeeze until she breaks.

"I understand," she says after a few moments. "Sometimes things have to be done."

"Like it or not, we're probably going to have to get used to the fact that she's there," he says, rubbing his forehead. God, he wishes this would just end already.

She's not telling him who else has been near the bar lately.

"Yeah," she sights and looks up at him. "But she's not here now."

"No, she's not." He kind of made sure of that years ago, when he put four bullets into her.

Hearing about the woman who killed your mom coming into the bar again kind of kills conversation.

"And she'll never get to be here again. She's lost."

"No, she'll just be able to hang around the bar for God knows how long." He sighs. "Sorry, sweetheart, I know you were probably looking forward to just being able to talk today."

"She can't be worse than Ramon," she points out. Although that's like saying one type of cancer can't be as bad as another.

And she gives him a weak smile as she rests her elbow on the table. "Yeah, but my news wasn't exactly great, either."

"Yeah, but this didn't exactly help. How're you and Chase doing? What does he think about you going back to CTU?" he asks, swirling his drink for something to do with his hands.

Her smile's a little more natural, "We're good," she says, and it's almost the truth. Chase is coming to terms with the whole 'Behrooz is bonded to me and probably knows when we're having sex' news.

"We've been talking about it and he wants to go back too."

"Chase is going back to CTU? Is he going into field work?" Jack asks, surprised. A few years ago, Kim hadn't been thrilled about the thought of helping Chase raise Angie while he was doing field work.

She shakes her head, "I think he wants a desk job, one that keeps him out of the line of fire." Of course, in their world, that's no guarantee.

"He's kind of miserable at the job now. I think he was almost relieved when I brought up CTU."

"He did mention that, years ago." Before that little thing of...Jack chopping off his hand with an axe. "And I know that he hasn't been happy working in the private sector."

Of course he's still not comfortable with the thought of someone else he cares about going back to CTU, but it's not like he has much of a choice, here.

"He told me that too, which is why he went to the private sector in the first place but..."

And she saw him broken and barely breathing and that had nothing to do with CTU.

"If we're all in danger anyway, why stop yourself from trying to make a difference?"

"Yeah," he says, softly, looking out at the ocean. Of course there's being in as much danger as anyone else in L.A. and going looking for it. Not that he has much room to talk there.

It seems kind of weird to see half the people he knows going back to CTU, when for a while it seemed like he was the only one who wasn't trying to get away from it. Before he got fired, at least.

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