Crap.  Why was her disk drive re-formating itself.  No, make that, shit!  Chloe’s fingers flew over the keyboard as she tried to convince the laptop she was hacking to give up the operation.  It was being onery.  Fuck it!  She was already loosing files.  Leaning forward she lost herself in the streams of data.  She was going to loose it.  She was going to loose it…

            She lost it.  “GODDAMN THAT SONOVABITCH!”  Her tiny fist banged painfully against the desk as she glowered fiercely.  Coffee.  Coffee would be good before she did something stupid like screaming again or bursting into tears.

            On shaky legs she stood.  The laptop whose fifth level encryption (The NSA could take months to crack such a code.) had defeated CTU’s resistant genius mocked her.  “Oh, fuck you,” she told it testily.  Jack was going to be pissed.  He didn’t understand that the dirty agent he was trying to catch had an IQ at least equal to Chloe’s own, or that it he was asking her to do the impossible.

            Cup of coffee in hand, she returned to her desk to see the man waiting for her.  Before he could speak she snarled, “It reformatted the damn drive.  I couldn’t stop it because you refuse to give me Milo and Morris, who I need , and wouldn’t let me stream a code-breaking program from NSA.  In other words, Jack, I did everything I could.  This isn’t my fault.”  She gulped her coffee and plopped into her chair.

            Jack blinked and said quietly, “I know Chloe.  Chase already read me the riot act.”  He sighed and rubbed his temples.  “Look, I owe you an apology.  For the who’ll asleep on the job comment earlier.  I know you’re giving me all you got right now.”  He looked slightly sheepish as he put both hands on her shoulders.  “Thanks, Chlo.”

            Flushing slightly at the compliment she scowled at him.  “I’m going to pull it apart and see what I can recover from the componets.  Go away.”  Jack chuckled and, to the shock and amusement of everyone around, bent down to kiss her cheek.

            “That’s my girl.”  Patting her shoulder he headed back upstairs.

            Bewildered, Chloe stared after him.  Her blush got hotter but she smiled a little as she returned to the laptop.  She paused, and groaned.

            This couldn’t be happening.  She was following in love with Jack Bauer.