Within the 24 storyline, Kim is on multiple occasions brought into perilous situations, causing Jack Bauer's motives to shift from professional to personal.
[2] Kim and her friend, Janet York, sneak out of their homes to meet college men Dan and Rick, who eventually kidnap the girls.
They flee when it is attacked by one of Victor Drazen's thugs, but split up after a car crash so Kim goes to visit Rick to find help.
Kim doesn't deal with her mother's death well and drops out of school, becoming an au pair with the Mathesons, a family from Los Angeles.
When Jack discovers the plot to detonate a nuclear bomb, he tries to relocate Kim, requesting that she be evacuated if he returns to CTU.
Kim does not respond to Jack's request, but does find herself in serious trouble when she discovers Megan Matheson, her charge, is being abused by her father Gary.
This is complicated by the pursuit of Gary, who has inflicted medical problems upon Megan, which only causes additional issues with their escape.
Eventually, Kim, her boyfriend Miguel, and Megan leave the hospital by stealing Gary's car, but when they are pulled over for speeding, the highway patrol officer discovers blood dripping from the trunk.
Tony and Michelle's bad feelings however come true when Peter Madsen and a large number of thugs take over CTU while the other field agents are pre-occupied with the false nerve gas attacks.
Madsen and Sin-Chung take Kim hostage when CTU tactical teams storm the building to regain their base.
Under the guise of "having to use the bathroom" with Chase covering for her, Kim sneaks away and sends the call to CTU therefore exposing Madsen's plan to create artificial earthquakes.
Despite concerns from one of her colleagues that she was only granted the job due to her father's position as Director, Kim proves her skills and worth.
Chase ends the series being wheeled into surgery for an operation to re-attach his severed hand; Kim chooses a life with him, and is mentioned to be living with him in Valencia, California, and helping raise his daughter during the events of Day 4.
She is romantically involved with Landes, whom Jack instantly dislikes, believing he, being much older, is taking advantage of Kim in her troubled mental state.
She initially resents her father for not "trusting her enough" to let her know he was still alive, but Chloe O'Brian tells Kim that of the four people who did know Jack had faked his death, all had been targeted for assassination that very morning; two were now dead and one critically injured.
After the threat of the nerve gas is eliminated Kim leaves CTU, telling her father that though she still loves him, she cannot deal with the fact that every time she is near him, she is surrounded by death and disaster.
Kim was brought there by Renee Walker and it was revealed that she had been trying to reach Jack all day and track him down for some time, but his constant moving made it impossible.
The man from the couple Kim is sitting with kills the FBI agent in the airport bathroom and takes his gun.
He then uses his computer to show a live video feed of Kim which is then used as leverage to make Jack break Tony out of FBI custody.
Kim attempts to take the computer out of the car, but the terrorist uses his last reserve of strength to pull her arm into a fire.
They are able to apprehend Tony moments before letting off a bomb placed on captive Bauer in an attempt to kill Alan Wilson, his pregnant wife's murderer.
As Jack slowly falls into a morphine induced coma, Kim arrives at the hospital and tells the doctors that she wants to donate stem cells to try to save her dying father.
Jack is reluctant to return to his old kind of life, but Kim tells him that she knows he couldn't live with himself if something happened he could have helped stop.