He padded down the stairs tentatively, as he had every day for the last week. He got up everyday at dawn, he supposed, because there wasn’t anything else to do but get up. Carol made him breakfast. Freshly-squeezed orange juice, toast, fruit, eggs, her dark hair swept up in some kind of twist so complex it was impossible to tell its natural length. He had yet to see her without her eyes made up, without a reminder of his mother. He never ate the eggs.  

          He spoke mostly to Carol and only because she spoke to him. The others seemed off-limits somehow, distant, adults planning things he didn’t understand in a world that he was slowly realizing none of them recognized. He had woken up last Saturday morning and came downstairs to breakfast. By Sunday morning, the world was at war.  

          It is a week later now and he’s not even entirely sure where he is. Some island he’s never heard of, some place small enough to be unmapped. Part of that bothers him—he’s had enough of disorientation. The other part thrills him—if hardly anyone knows of this place, it’s almost as if he’s discovering it. It’s almost as if it’s fresh and clean and just for him. A new start.  

          Carol isn’t in the kitchen and he pauses before opening the refridgerator and pulling out the orange juice. There isn’t any freshly-squeezed without Carol so he has to drink it from the carton. He stares at the kitchen island, recalling the one similar in his own house and his mother’s disapproving look as he drank from the container. He opens the cabinet and finds a glass.

          While he’s pouring, he can hear the men on the porch. His mind catches “the kid” and holds it against his ear with the deafening echo of a seashell. This is what they call him when he’s not around, he knows. He wonders if he still is one, after this past week. He knows he is an orphan. He knows he was arrested, was being held prisoner. He knows he now lives on this nameless island, with these strangers, for reasons so delicate that he knows to let hours pass by without their mention. Those hours have stretched into days and days, a week. 

          They hear him put the glass down on the countertop and exchange a quick look. Jack lights another cigarette. Tony turns back towards the house and says his name through the screen door.  

          “Behrooz.”  

          He looks up too quickly, the sound of his name too foreign. He isn’t “the kid” when he’s in the room. Then, he has a name. He wants to change his name. He wonders how you’re supposed to go through life with a name that holds nothing but bad connotations. He wonders how these men have survived. He wonders what they’ve survived.  

          “C’mhere. We need your help.”

           He is sick of helping. He wants to do nothing but help. He feels as if he is no help—he is just weighing down whatever these men are planning. He’s a kid. Even when he’s in the room. He puts the orange juice away and takes his glass out to the porch, slowly.

          He isn’t quite sure how he got here. He was in the holding room, and then, he wasn’t. He was in a SUV. He was on a private plane. He was here, on the nameless island. He was in the living room, watching the war on television. Watching Los Angeles on fire. Watching the quiet men burn with defeat. He thought of his father again.

          Because you’re weak. And you stand for nothing.

          Jack’s voice had been quiet, as he’s finding it usually is. “It’s alright, son,” had been the whisper as he fought the urge not to pull the trigger again, to shoot his father again. “It’s alright.” 

          These men are not weak, he has realized. They do not stand for nothing. He knows what they stand for. He is begin to understand supreme sacrifice. He is beginning to realize that these men have betrayed their country in order to save it.  

          He finds the empty deckchair between them and sits at the patio table, staring at the array of maps, timelines and files held to the table by mugs of coffee, pitchers of water, an orange, a banana. He wonders idly if, technically, he’s been kidnapped. He wonders if there’s anything more bizarre than feeling safer with these captors than he did his own parents.  

          “Behrooz.” Tony has trouble looking at him sometimes, his voice changes. Jack knows why. He doesn’t. He wants to ask. He senses that it’s more than that Tony was the one to take him from CTU to the plane, was the one not to leave him behind. He would have died there, like the millions on the news. He has trouble thinking of people as numbers. ‘Millions’ somehow sounds collective and cold, dismissive. Meaningless. He wishes to God that he had called the police last Saturday.  

          “We need you to look through these files and tell us if you recognize any of these people.” Tony goes back to work, as absorbed in his reading as Jack is.  

          He stares at the file, unseeing, for a minute before deciding to be the kid, even though he’s in the room. 

          “Why am I here?” 

          Jack glances up, but at Tony, and exhales from his cigarette. Tony looks back at his folder and mumbles. “Because it’s safe here. For now.” 

          “Well, what does *that* mean?”  

          “Behrooz,” Jack answers, drawing the attention from Tony. Jack realizes that he has no idea how to explain this new world. “It’s the only place we can be right now.” 

          “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing. I’m not stupid. You have me looking at files and trying to identify your suspects but you took me illegally. You can’t still be government agents…You *kidnapped* me…” 

          “Yeah,” Tony cuts him off, without looking up. “I did.”  

          He is stunned into momentary silence by the plain-spoken confession and just sits, waiting. Tony finally turns from his file and Behrooz suddenly understands. He can still love his country, even if he hates his country. He is not weak. He does not stand for nothing.  

          “Look, Behrooz… There was no deal with witness protection. We lied to you. I’m sorry.” Behrooz nods after a second. He had suspected as much after his mother’s death. He knew not to trust. “Truth is, we woulda said anything to get your mother to cooperate with us. Millions of lives were at stake and…” Millions. Who are now of the dismissed dead. A number. On the television. In the living room. On the nameless island, away from the count that he somehow knows is coming closer.  

          “They would have put you in prison,” Jack finishes. “We thought you’d be more useful with us.”  

          Behrooz is listening but hasn’t taken his eyes off of Tony, who watches the clear ocean water darken the ankles of Michelle’s pants.  

          “But… I’m not useful. I don’t know any of these people.”  

          I’m a kid.  

          “Doesn’t matter, Behrooz,” Tony whispers, his eyes still on his ex-wife. “Doesn’t matter.” 

          His voice escalates with panic. It does matter, it has to matter. If these men, these strong men who stand for things, if they discover that he is useless, they may abandon him as well. They may send him away from the nameless island. He might have to be a number on the television set, a casuality of war. His panic roars, seashell to his ear, with the abruptness of shattered glass.  

          “But… you’re *fugitives*.” Jack’s shoulders harden at the word being spoken aloud, not angry but frozen. “You kidnapped me and you ran away from your government jobs and—“ 

          “Behrooz,” Tony corrects quietly, his eyes still unmoving. “You’re right. We are.” Behrooz quiets, again stilled by the verbalization of such logic. “But… our jobs aren’t over.” 

          Jack senses that Tony doesn’t feel up to explaining the rest and steps in. “We work for President Palmer now. For his organization. Our… status… as fugitives is immaterial to the job now. In some ways, it probably makes it easier. Counter-intelligence is counter-intelligence, Behrooz…” He watches Tony’s eyes, on his wife and a world away. “Things aren’t always how they appear.” 

          “So… I can stay with you then.”  

          It’s so simple a concept that the men wonder how they missed defining it for him and both immediately feel guilty.  

          “Yeah,” Jack exhales. “You don’t really have a choice…” 

          “He has a choice,” Tony reminds softly, eyes still staring ahead. “You always have a choice…” 

          “We’re going to train you. To do this.” Jack gestures towards the maps, the timelines, the files, the world on the table before them. “If that’s what you want.” 

          If that’s what he wants. To be strong. To stand for something.  

          If that’s who he is.  

          He isn’t sure what to say. He picks the file back up. This seems to be a satisfactory answer.  

          Tony slides his chair back and heads across the beach. Behrooz watches Jack’s eyes follow him. He’s in the room now. He knows he’s never again just the kid.  

          “What happened to them?”  

          “They were married.” It’s the simple answer, Jack thinks. It’s all he wants to tell this innocent kid.

          They got lost. They were disoriented. They lost count, were dismissive. They were cold.  

          “This guy,” Behrooz says, pulling Jack’s eyes back from the ocean’s edge. “I’ve seen this guy. My father said he was a college roommate but that’s probably not true. He stayed with us for a week or two a few years ago.”  

          Jack stares down at the file. “How long ago?” 

          Behrooz thinks hard, wanting to be strong. “About a year and a half ago, maybe.”  

          “You’re sure?” 

          “Yeah.” 

          Jack is silent for a minute and Behrooz grows impatient.  

          “Does that help?” 

          Jack tears his eyes from the file to Tony and Michelle down the beach, to silent tears and quiet discussion. He watches the sun highlight the curls that have recently returned, reflecting off Tony’s watch as he tucks one back behind her ear. Jack can feel Tony’s hand shake, despite the distance.        

          Two of them now, he counts. Two. 

          Jack looks back at the file, stares at the picture of Stephen Saunders and begins to put him in the past. He watches the tentative kiss grow more passionate. He kidnapped you, Behrooz, he thinks, so you would have your second chance.   

          “Yeah. That helps.”