This is something I've been thinking about for a while. I've always written in third person andI wanted to write a story in first person for a change. Imentioned Michelle and Tony's first date briefly in Escape to Argentina. I thought I would go back and tell it in detail from each of their perspectives.

So, as usual, I don't own any of this. If I did, I'd write happy endings for my favorite couple!

Chapter 1: Michelle

I looked at the clock for the fourth time in the last ten minutes. Lying in bed was pointless; there was no way I was going to go back to sleep. My mind was too full of all that had happened in the last day.

It all started out like a normal day when I arrived at work at 7 o'clock yesterday morning, but by the time I left at 8 o'clock this morning, my life had changed. Thirty of my colleagues were dead from a bomb blast at CTU, lots more were injured. George Mason was dead. Officially he died crashing the plane that carried the nuke safely out of LA, but unofficially he died of radiation poisoning. The plane crash just got him first.

There were a couple of bright spots in the day though. I finally told Tony Almeida that I cared for him. It was probably a mistake, but I felt better after I did it. He claimed to feel the same way. For a moment I thought there might be hope for us yet assuming that we survived the day.

Once the nuke was detonated and LA was safe, I thought everything would be fine. Maybe Tony even meant what he said to me and he would ask me out to dinner and a movie. I was so tired, I thought I'd be able to come home in a few hours and sleep. Then the Cypress audio surfaced and it all hit the fan again. Tony and I were completely at odds. He was on a major power trip after he was named acting director. I don't know if it was really a power trip or if he was just scared and didn't know how else to take control. I finally had to admit that I had been in touch with Jack Bauer. Tony didn't seem as pissed as I thought he would be. Anyway, I am sure I blew away any chance I had of ever getting close to him.

Like that wasn't enough, I had to deal with Carrie Turner. Then Danny showed up. The last thing I needed was Danny's volatile personality in the middle of a crisis. Even without Carrie that would have been difficult. Add Carrie to the mix and it was like torching an oil refinery. So what does the always in control, never lets her emotions get in the way Michelle Dessler do next? I cried! I can't believe I cried. Like a little kid. Things weren't going my way, so I cried. The worst part of it was that I didn't even have the good sense to go cry in the locker room. I stood in a public hallway.

The next thing I know, Tony is there. I've never felt so stupid in my entire life. I'm crying in front of my boss. He was nice about it, but what was he going to do. He couldn't afford for me to have a total break down and have to go home. He needed every warm body he could find at that moment. I thought it was nice of him to hug me and let me cry, but what ever possessed me to kiss him is beyond me. He was so close and so warm and he was pushing my hair out of my face. I noticed that he didn't exactly push me away. I'm pretty sure that I felt his tongue in my mouth. He said later that he wasn't sorry that we kissed and he did hold my hand in the holding room, but I'm sure he was just being a gentleman.

That's one of the things that attracts me to him. He is such a gentleman, but he also respects my abilities. Most men can't do both. If they respect your abilities, then they treat you like one of the guys. If they act like a gentleman toward you, then they assume you are stupid. Tony has found just the right mix. Oh, why am I dwelling on Tony? By the time we left this morning he said "good job" and that's it. I guess that's as much as I should expect from the director of CTU. I should be thrilled that the director says "good job." Somehow coming from Tony, it just isn't enough.

Why am I still laying here? I might as well get up. I've slept most of the day, at least since about 9 o'clock after I dropped Danny off at his place. I hope leaving him alone was alright. I just wasn't in the mood to babysit a 32 year old. He was still pretty sedated from the drugs they gave him. I'm sure he'll sleep most of the day. I'll call him later. I've got 48 hours off, so there is plenty of time to see him.

I decided to get up and clean my apartment. I had just finished scrubbing my kitchen floor when the phone rang. This better not be CTU. I will refuse to go back in there, I swear!

I checked the caller ID; it was Tony. Unfortunately, I guess I can't refuse to go in if the director calls me.

"Dessler," I answered.

"Hi, Michelle, it's Tony. I hope I didn't wake you."

"No, I've been awake for a while. What's up?"

"I just thought I'd see how you were doing."

"I'm okay. How about you?"

"I'm fine. Is your brother okay?"

"Yeah, I left him at his house. He'll probably sleep most of the day. Thanks for being so understanding. Have you heard anything about Jack?"

"Ya, I called the hospital and talked to Kim. He's going to be okay." He paused. I thought he was going to say his goodbyes and that would be it. "Uh, Michelle…I, uh, I guess this isn't going quite like I planned it, but the truth is, I really don't want to be alone this evening. My mind is just spinning. I wondered if we could get together for dinner?"

"Oh Tony, I feel the same way. I was cleaning my apartment just to stay busy. I'd love to go get some dinner. Did you want to meet some place?"

"I don't feel like going to a crowded restaurant. If it's okay with you, I could cook and we can eat here."

"That would be great, Tony. Can I bring something? I'll warn you, I can't cook, but I could bring some wine or pick up dessert."

"Wine would be nice."

"Okay. What time should I get there?"

"Around seven would work for me, how about you?"

"Seven is fine. I'll see you then." I hung up unable to believe what just happened. Tony Almeida just invited me to dinner at his place. I dropped my scrub rag back into the bucket of gray, murky water and put the bucket where I wouldn't trip over it. I didn't feel like taking the time to pour out the water and clean the sink.

I went to the bathroom for a shower. I washed my hair with a honey and vanilla shampoo then I scraped two days worth of stubble off of my legs with a new razor taking care not to nick myself. As I toweled off I wondered what to expect tonight. Is this just a friendly dinner or is Tony thinking more. I shuddered at the thought. As much as I cared for Tony, my past experiences with men made me shun the idea of intimacy. "Shun" was a nice word. The truth was, the thought disgusted me. Even when I thought about Tony I couldn't imagine being intimate with him. Not tonight for sure; maybe never.

Try as I might, I couldn't keep my thoughts from drifting back to my last boyfriend Brent Hayden. I worked with Brent at Division. We weren't in the same department but our paths crossed regularly. It all started so innocently. How did it end so badly?

I didn't know anyone when I started at Division. The job was so intimidating and the people weren't overly friendly. Let's face it, people don't take jobs with the CIA to make friends. There are generally there to do a job and go home and try and forget all of the classified shit that they learned that day. That's why so many agents are so screwed up.

Anyway, Brent was friendly. He showed me around and got a group of people together to go out for happy hour after work on my first day. All in all he seemed nice. He was older than me, about 45 to my 27. It didn't matter to me, in fact, I kind of liked the age difference. He didn't need to play the games that men my age played. He was so mature; almost a father figure. I didn't realize it at the time but I guess that was what I was looking for since my own father left us when I was ten. I hadn't seen him even once in the last fifteen years. Brent was a lot of fun. He took me interesting places: out of the way museums and off-beat theaters and clubs. He was divorced, although it wasn't clear to me for a long time if he had been married once or twice. He had two kids that were in their teens who he didn't seem to have any real relationship with. That probably should have been a warning sign for me. Any guy who doesn't have a relationship with his children has got other problems. My own father was a good example of that.

I had been at Division for a couple of weeks and Brent and I had eaten lunch together in a group several times when he first asked me out. He suggested that we go to see the new exhibit at the museum of modern art and dinner afterwards at one of the most exclusive restaurants in LA. I knew exactly what that meant. You know when a man who you have never gone out with before asks you to an expensive restaurant that you are going to be expected to "perform" afterwards. It's like prostituting yourself. He takes you someplace nice and gets sex as a reward. I didn't kid myself when I said "yes" I knew we would end up in bed, but the idea didn't really bother me.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not "easy" by any stretch of the imagination. I really didn't know Brent that well but I liked him and I liked the way he treated me. Despite the fact that I was 27, my experience with sex was limited. I didn't lose my virginity until my junior year in college. At that point, I thought I was probably the oldest virgin left on campus.

I never dated a lot. Men tend to stay away from the smart girls. I was always good at math and science and spent my day in classes full of men who were only interested in me if I had the notes from a class that they missed or they needed someone to study with. They never looked twice at me and considered that I might be pretty.

I finally started dating the brother of one of my girlfriends. He was okay and I was tired of all the girls making fun of me for being a virgin, so when he quite obviously wanted to have sex with me after our second date, I decided to do it. By the time it was over, I pretty much wondered what all the fuss was about. I didn't really enjoy it. He obviously did. He moaned and groaned the whole time and once he was satisfied, he didn't seem to care too much that I wasn't. I kept telling myself that the next time would be better, but it never was. I eventually broke off the relationship and it was another six months before I was dating someone again. And, once again, I found the sex mediocre. I was beginning to wonder what was wrong with me.

Now here I was with an older and far more experienced man. I hoped that it would be different this time. At first it seemed to be. He took a little more time with me and actually engaged in foreplay. We shared a bottle of wine and he put on soft background music. I have to admit, I still wasn't sure what all the fuss was about, but Brent was much better that the frat boys I had been with in the past.

It was fun for a while. Brent took me all kinds of nice places. I started spending more and more time at his house. He suggested that I move in and, although I considered it, I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment. Shortly after I told him that I didn't want to move in things started to change. On the surface he was still treating me wonderfully, but when we were alone, he started to make subtle little comments. He would tell me that I was too uptight or that I didn't know how to have fun. He always said them with a smile on his face as if they were in jest, but I got the feeling that he was serious.

One night when we were in bed, he was having trouble getting aroused. I didn't think it was a big deal but he got really upset about it. He told me that if I knew how to please him, this wouldn't be a problem. The next time we were in bed he started to get a little rough. Nothing bad, he just held me down a little more forcefully than I thought necessary. The next morning when I mentioned it to him he told me to lighten up, but he did say that he was sorry and that if I didn't like it rough, he wouldn't do it again.

Each time we had sex it seemed to get a little rougher. I tried everything. I made sure we had wine and music, I tried to do things that I knew he especially liked, but nothing seemed to help. When I asked him about it, he blamed me. He said that I didn't know how to excite him; that if I were better in bed then he wouldn't have to be so rough.

I must have been crazy, but I let it continue. One Friday evening after work, we went to a going away party for a coworker. The party was crowded and loud and plenty of alcohol was served. By the time we got back to Brent's house, neither of us was feeling any pain.

As we walked in the front door, Brent grabbed me and started kissing me. The kissing got more and more intense and he started to undress me. He pushed my jacket off of my shoulders and threw it to the floor. I was drunk and at that moment the whole thing seemed funny. I'm not sure what happened next. I suggested that we go upstairs but I don't know what set him off. I could almost see the anger rise in his eyes. Brent threw me down on the tile floor in the entrance hall. When he did, my head hit the floor and I was stunned for a second. I started to get up, but I was drunk enough to not have much coordination and Brent pushed me back down.

Before I could stop him he was sitting on top of me. He had one knee on either side of my hips and was sitting on my stomach. He grabbed my blouse and ripped it open. At first I was angry but now I was scared. I tried to get away, but he was too strong. He pulled a pocket knife out and cut my bra in the middle and pushed it open.

I begged him to stop and I fought as hard as I could. He held both of my wrists with one hand and pulled off his necktie. He wound the silk tie around my wrists and tied it tightly. I was completely helpless and crying at that point. I decided to stop fighting because it seemed pointless. That apparently fueled his anger. He punched me twice and told me to stop crying. The second blow split my lower lip and I could taste blood.

He reached down and opened his pants. I could feel how excited he was. He raised up on his knees so that he could pull down his pants and he forced himself deeply into my mouth. I was crying hard and gagging. I couldn't breathe and I thought he was going to choke me to death.

My shirt had ridden completely up my back and was under my neck now. My back was bare against the rough tile on the floor and I could feel that the frantic rhythm he was maintaining was rubbing my shoulder blades against the tile and abrading them. I could feel a wet spot developing under one of them and knew that it was bleeding.

Brent was still quite aroused, and was becoming more and more frustrated that he couldn't climax. He pulled away and slapped me hard when I begged him to stop. Then he pushed up my skirt and tore off my panties and forced himself inside of me. I was screaming now so he clamped one hand over my mouth and used the other to pin my arms over my head. I could feel him bruising my wrists the way he pressed them to the floor. Again he picked up an intense rhythm. I thought it would never end. I have no idea how long it went on but he finally put his head back and groaned loudly. I sobbed with relief hoping, praying that it was over.

Brent unceremoniously pulled himself out of me and pulled up his pants. Then he untied my wrists but held my arms pinned at my sides. He leaned down close to my face, his breath rancid with whiskey. He looked into my eyes and said, "If you ever tell anyone about this I will categorically deny it. You have no history at Division, I do. Who do you think they will believe? I've already made sure that all the guys know you like rough sex. I'm the envy of my department. So, if you think you can bring me down on some rape charge or some sexual harassment complaint, you've got another thing coming, little girl. I will ruin you. You will never work for another government agency. Now I'm going to go to bed and I suggest that you come with me."

He let go of my arms and I curled up in a fetal position on my side. I lay perfectly still. I think I was in shock. I couldn't even cry any more.

"Suit yourelf. If you want to lie there, fine," he told me. "You'll be begging for me to take you back soon enough. Do you think other men are going to be interested in you after this? You're used goods, Baby. No man wants you in his bed anymore."

He jogged up the stairs as if nothing had happened. I heard him turn on the shower and I actually could hear him singing. I just laid there on the tile floor. I was cold and scared and I didn't know what to do next, but I knew that I wasn't going upstairs with him. The shower eventually stopped and it became quiet upstairs. It wasn't long before I could hear Brent snoring.

It was about 3:00am before I could get myself together enough to get off the floor. I finally stood up and straightened myself out as best I could and grabbed my purse. Fortunately we had taken my car to the party, so it was now parked in Brent's driveway. I found my keys in the bottom of my purse and slipped out the front door.

I don't remember driving home, but obviously I did. The next thing I really remember was waking up in my bed around noon feeling hungover and bruised from head to toe. My mouth tasted like a combination of stale alcohol and blood. I undressed and surveyed the damage. My lip was split and there was still some blood on my face and teeth. There was a welt on the left side of my face where Brent slapped me and his ring hit my cheek bone. My wrists were bruised a dark blue and there were bruises on both upper arms from where Brent first pinned me down. I turned and looked over my shoulder so that I could see my back. Both shoulder blades were scraped, but the right one was cut open and dried blood was smeared all over the area. The area over my tailbone was also scraped raw. There had been a small rug over the tile in Brent's entrance hall and it had created a rug burn on the backs of my legs.

I turned on the shower to the hottest water I could stand and got in. I have no idea how long I stood there. It could have been hours. I washed until I thought the skin was going to come off and still I didn't feel clean. I wanted the soap to erase the memory, but it wouldn't. I wanted to forget how scared and humiliated I felt, but I couldn't. I finally got out of the shower and dried off and fell back into my bed crying. I cried until I made myself sick. I hadn't eaten since the night before so my stomach was empty. I ran into the bathroom and vomited bile and then I sat on the bathroom floor with dry heaves.

I didn't know what to do next. I couldn't go to the police and I couldn't go to Brad Hammond. There was no real evidence that he raped me. People knew that we were intimately involved and date rape is hard to prove. It would be his word against mine and I knew he had a stellar record at Division.

I thought about quitting my job, but I couldn't afford to. That was when I remembered that there was an opening at CTU but I didn't know the details so I wasn't sure that I was qualified. I pulled myself together enough to talk on the phone and called my friend Jessica. Jess worked in the human resources office for the CIA, which was how I found out about the job at Division. She would know the details of the CTU job. Jess wouldn't suspect anything. Division was known to be a hard place to work so when I told her that I was interested in transferring to CTU, she would understand.

I was right, I called Jess and she didn't question my motives at all. She gave me the details and assured me that I was qualified. She also said that she thought I was a shoe in for the job. At that time, no one wanted to go to CTU. It was in turmoil since Nina Myers was exposed as a double agent and Jack Bauer had taken a leave of absence. George Mason had been named director but everyone knew that he had higher ambitions and he wasn't expected to stay at CTU very long. A number of people loyal to Jack Bauer didn't like George and transferred out of CTU. So the long and the short of it was that CTU was currently much like the red headed step child, no one wanted any part of it.

I told Jess that I wanted to put in a bid for the job that had been vacated when Tony Almeida was promoted to second in command. She told me that she would do it first think Monday morning.

When Monday arrived, I put on a long sleeved blouse to cover my bruises and used makeup to cover the marks on my face. I walked into the office determined to act as if nothing happened. A couple of people asked about my lip and the cut on my cheek but I said that I fell when I was out running and no one seemed to question it. Brent made sure that he avoided me and I avoided him as well. It was late in the day when Brad Hammond called me into his office to say that George Mason had reviewed my bid for the job at CTU and was would like to interview me on Wednesday afternoon. He asked if there was any reason that I wanted to leave Division and I told him that I thought the job at CTU would be more of a challenge. He agreed that that was true and dismissed me from his office.

I interviewed at CTU and was offered the job. I think I fell in love with Tony the minute I met him. Everybody knew his history with Nina. The whole story about Nina made front page news for days and Tony hadn't been spared. He had been suspended from CTU pending an investigation into his relationship with Nina, but he was eventually cleared of any wrong doing and was reinstated. Tony was shy and aloof and I could tell that he was very guarded when he talked to anyone but especially to women. He was so good looking and nice that women were always looking for a reason to talk to him. He didn't seem to notice any of them including me.

The truth was that I didn't really want him to notice me. I didn't think that I ever wanted any man to ever notice me again. I just wanted to be able to watch him and admire him from a distance where he couldn't hurt me.

Now here I was, after telling Tony that I cared for him just 24 hours ago, standing naked in front of my closet wondering what to wear on our first date.

If you've read to this point, please review. I'm not sure if this is worth continuing or not. Let me know what you think.