Pairing: Tony/Michelle
Rating: PG-13
Notes: AU, set about four years after season 3, ignoring season 4.

Disclaimer: They're not mine, they're FOX's. I also borrowed a character from another FOX show for this chapter.

Two and half hours later, Tony found himself getting antsy during Michelle's speech. He glanced at the program again - "Interagency cooperation and its importance for aviation security". At least there was going to be a break after that. He had to admit, it was a fairly intriguing topic and her speech was certainly one of the interesting ones of the morning, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Michelle didn't really agree with everything she was saying. It was like she'd pushed aside everything he'd ever taught her, everything they'd worked on over the years. He suspected she wouldn't volunteer any information, so he stood up and raised his hand.

"Excuse me, Miss Dessler?" he said, trying to maintain a professional tone.

"Yes, Mister...?" she played along.

"Anthony Almeida, CTU San Diego." he answered. "It's always been my understanding that if there's an imminent terrorist threat, it'd be best to hold off, possibly create a diversion until the nearest SWAT or CTU field ops unit can be on site, instead of trying to let airport police handle it. At least, that's what I was trained to do and I'm sure you were, too."

Michelle gulped. He was putting her in an impossible situation. If she didn't completely manage to stick to the facts, the largely male audience would probably think of her as some poor women with hormonal imbalances. "Yes, that is what I was trained to do, Mr. Almeida. Still, recent drills have shown that the success of an airport mission depends much more on response time than on expertise of the people involved. Airport police has a clear advantage in that area."

Tony let out a cynic chuckle. "Well, drills are called that for a reason. They have absolutely nothing to do with real life circumstances. And while I appreciate all your simulations, the downsides of using airport police against suspects are very clear. Didn't LAX police lose two of their men last month, to someone who was trying to smuggle an Egyptian artifact into the country? And that guy had been alone, armed with nothing but a knife. So imagine what would happen if they were up against mercenaries or even terrorists."

He knew her too well, knew that this was the part of her speech she'd had trouble with. The changes and suggestions had come from Hammond's office and now he'd gotten to her. Still, she managed to take a deep breath and keep her voice level. "Mr. Almeida, I'm aware of your opinion on this subject and I can promise you, I will look into your concerns. But my speech was written with all the information and statistics I had from simulations and right now, there are no inconsistencies and absolutely nothing to invalidate them."

Tony wasn't satisfied with the answer, but he also knew better than to push her any further. Instead, he just nodded and silently thanked her before sitting down again.

During the break, he left the auditorium in search of the vending machine people he'd heard people talk about, only to find it in the basement next to the restroom doors. Still disturbed by the location, he didn't hear someone approaching him, before Michelle's - very loud - voice made him turn around.

She cornered him and poked his chest with her index finger. "What the hell were you thinking, Tony? Were you trying to kill my career? Or were you just going for slight embarrassment? This is probably the most important stepping stone for people in our line of work and you made me look like a goddamn rookie! You were way outta line!"

Tony returned her angry glare. "Oh, I was out of line? You were up there telling a very romantic story of interagency cooperation that you know wouldn't work in real life. All that at a conference where people still think Los Angeles CTU is one of the best branches in the country! Where everybody knows I basically trained everybody there ever since Mason became director, including you! You know better than what you said up there and I'd like to know why you said stuff only a rookie would say, long before I ever asked anything. Cause from where I was sitting, it looked like you were trying to please someone way above you with absolutely no tactical knowledge."

"Bull's eye", she thought. How had he been able to figure that out so quickly? Was she that much of an open book? Then she remembered was giving a speech on "detecting deception attempts in trained operatives" and blamed it on that instead. If he could get information from a terrorist who didn't even speak English in a matter of minutes, he would sure as hell be able to know what his ex-wife was thinking.

She shook her head and moved dangerously close to him again. "How dare you? I am not selling out, I am telling people what I believe is the best way to handle a certain situation. We've conducted drills and test runs, and all of that won't convince you, why - cause I left you?"

That was the last straw for him. She wanted to get personal? She could have it. "Bullshit!" He lowered his voice slightly so not everybody exiting the restrooms would know every detail of their fight. "Just think about it - maybe you could convince me that you were telling the truth in any way. Maybe if you remembered that I'm not some random person you just met, but the person you had once promised to spend the rest of your life with! Maybe you could convince me if you didn't sound like a total ass-kisser!"

He had expected to get a very angry answer, but not this. She slapped him so hard that he tumbled backwards toward the wall. He hadn't even adjusted to the burning in his cheek when he saw her hand rise again. He reacted quickly though, grabbing her by the wrist and spinning her around so she was now up against the wall, with him in her face, yelling at her.

"Will you just stop trying to hit me, for Christ's sakes?" She looked at him wide-eyed, with nothing but fear in her eyes. He loosened his grip on her wrist and backed away slightly. With the sudden realization of what he'd done, he released her hands and took another step back. Ashamed, he looked at the floor, scratching the back of his neck with his right hand. "I... I don't know... I..." he stammered, barely able to hold his voice steady. He leaned against the wall, buried his face in his hands and heard her leaving towards the women's restroom.

Exhaling sharply, he bought himself a bottle of water for his own speech and made his way back up to the auditorium.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats." he heard the announcer say, but it all sounded like it was far away.

He cleared his throat. "Good afternoon everybody. My name is Anthony Almeida, I'm the current director of field operations at CTU San Diego. As such, a large part of my job is interrogating suspects in the field and training recruits for it." He held his breath for a moment, trying to find Michelle in the audience. He had to blink several times in the bright spotlights and ultimately found her seat. It was empty. He took a sip of his water, trying to regain his composure. "Uhm... As most of you know, one of the biggest challenges in counterterrorism work today is the increasing number of highly trained hostile operatives. Now, these people aren't likely to talk, no matter the amount of pressure they're under, no matter the amount of pain we cause them. Which is why I have worked together closely with the country's leading experts on nonverbal communication and micro-expressions, Dr. Cal Lightman and his team at The Lightman Group in D.C., to create a slimmed-down version of the Facial Action Coding System for special use in intelligence work."

After an hour-long lecture working with what seemed like an endless amount of PowerPoint slides, the audience seemed to have found their new hero. People from all over the country congratulated Tony on his fantastic idea to work with a private firm that already held FBI credentials, but he didn't care. He'd been thrilled at first when he'd been chosen to go to Boston and give his own speech, the first thing he'd been proud of in a long time. Now it didn't matter, he needed to apologize to Michelle - but first, he needed to find her. She hadn't shown up during the course of his speech and she hadn't shown up to pick up her suitcase backstage.

Tony took the briefcase and headed upstairs, knowing the rest of the afternoon's speakers wouldn't care he was gone.

He slowly opened the door and stood in the short hallway of the suite before peeking around the corner where the bed stood. Michelle was lying on her side of the bed, but he couldn't tell if she was sleeping or not. He walked towards the bed, but stopped a couple of feet away from it.

"Michelle?" he asked quietly as he took off his jacket and tossed it over a chair. "You awake?"

"Yeah." she answered, knowing she'd only be able to hide her feelings for so long.

"I... I brought you your briefcase. You'd left it downstairs."

"Thanks." she said, her voice trembling slightly.

Still in his suit pants and t-shirt, Tony sat down on his side of the bed and leaned against the headboard. He'd come upstairs wanting to apologize and now he was speechless. First she'd been afraid of him and now she was curled up in bed and had obviously been crying. What was he supposed to do now? A couple of years ago, he would've scooted over and hugged her, but he clearly couldn't do that now.

"Michelle, look, I..." he sighed, desperately searching for words. "I'm... I just wanted to apologize. For losing my temper before. And this morning. I... you were right, I was out of line. I... I'm sorry." Against his better judgment, he touched her shoulder gently, but she flinched away.

"What?" he just whispered. "I'm sorry, I know I'm probably the last person you want in the room right now, but I was just trying to apologize."

"I know." she whispered back. "I'm sorry."

"Before, downstairs I mean, you... you were absolutely terrified of me. You've seen me angry before, but that... I think you overreacted just as much as I did."

"I don't think I did."

"I just thought we could agree..."

"I KNOW!" she said, way louder than she had planned and turned around to face him. "You just... Are you really wondering why I was that upset before? Why I 'overreacted'?

He shrugged, an uneasy feeling creeping through him. "Yeah."

She took a deep breath. "The night before I left... You were on the couch, drunk, of course. And I... I was sick of it. I wanted to go somewhere with you, anywhere, as long as it wasn't inside a two-mile radius around our house. Movies, dinner, just a walk in the park, but you didn't care. You just wanted to stay home with your bottle of beer and watch stupid Mexican soccer games. So I turned off the TV and begged you to come with me. And you... You just started yelling at me and then you... pushed me against the wall and..." she trailed off.

"That's exactly what I did today." he finished, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach.

Michelle nodded. "Still think I overreacted?"

Tony gulped and shook his head in disgust. "No. You..." he felt tears stinging in the back of his eyes. "Leaving was the right thing to do."

"What?" she asked in slight disbelief of what she'd just heard.

"Yeah, I... was ruining your life. I didn't leave the house, I didn't want you to go out... What else would you call that?" He hung his head.

"Don't be melodramatic. You... you were busy with yourself, you had to... adjust." She tried to explain.

He sat up again and looked at her. "But if you knew that, why didn't you give more time?

"I had given you more than enough chances, but you weren't there. You barely touched me and when we made love, you couldn't even look me in the eyes anymore. There's this old saying - 'the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.' That's what it felt like to me."

He stared at her blankly. "Still..." he protested weakly, knowing full well he'd just tried to argue against something he'd agreed with 30 seconds ago.

"Tony, I was 28 years old when we got divorced. I didn't know what to do with an alcoholic at home, and there was nobody who could give me any advice. My mom hated you anyway, my dad was at a loss just like me and most of my friends weren't even seriously involved with anyone. I couldn't handle it anymore, I..."

"You had to save yourself." he stated, without any emotion present, neither in his voice nor in his face.

She smiled at him sadly. "You know, I really.. really wish it would've worked out with us, I do. Cause all that crap aside, you're still the best man I've ever known."

"A drunk ex-con is the best man you've ever known? You really have a bad track record." he laughed bitterly.

"I do, but that's not the point. I was actually referring to the man who saved my life, knowing it would cost him everything." She took another deep breath. "And sometimes I wonder how we even made it that far. I mean, in our line of work, with both of us doing field work, the CTU bombing..."

He returned her sad smile. "Yeah, it's surprising we're still alive..." He bit his lower lip. "And maybe someday... we'll be able to have a normal conversation, without any kind of aggression getting in the way."

"I'd like that." she smiled again, an honest smile this time. "You think we could try that here, for the next two days. I think there's some people who already think we're nuts."

"Yeah, I think we could try that." He reached out with his right hand. "Truce?"

She shook his hand. "Truce."