A/N: This chapter is a little short but will be followed by another in just a couple of days, so check back soon. The two chapters just felt like entities and I didn't want to bring in anything else at this point. You may have noticed that the update rhythm for this fic is faster than for the fics before this - so be sure to keep up with reading ;-).

Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Intensive Care Unit

Six or seven days had passed since the attacks, and Tony was still kept asleep, so that his body would use all its energy to heal. The room hadn't changed, the hum and beep of the instruments was still there, the uncomfortable plastic chairs were still there, Tony was still there - and so was Michelle. She had come to dislike the white walls, the hideous plastic chairs, the sterile room, having spent day after day there and she wanted nothing more than to go home with Tony and just pretend to be a normal couple without worries or terrorists or painful memories to overcome. She had been thankful to Jack for making her spend at least that one night at home. She had indeed tried to relax, and sleep had not been a problem - she had been exhausted enough. Jack had tried to talk her into going home on Saturday, too, but she refused. Even though she hated the hospital room by now, she found comfort in the thought that Tony might get better sooner if she was there with him. Sitting there, alone with her thoughts, the last thing she expected was a knock on the door. But it came. Startled, she looked towards the door, expecting it to open, but as it didn't, she called out:

"Come in."

Now, the door slowly opened and revealed a woman in her fifities, standing in the doorway, a woman Michelle had never seen before. She was dressed neatly in a brown skirt, its length just below the knee, a beige blouse and a blazer matching the skirt. An inconspicuous necklace was hanging from her neck, her eyes were partly hidden behind a pair of glasses, their outline traced by a thin, black, metal frame. Her make up was unobtrusive, her lipstick just a little too red, her dark blonde, straight hair neatly combed and falling obediently to her shoulders but not any further than that.

The visitor remained outside the room, hesitant, as if reluctant to intrude on the privacy of the couple in the room, even though only one of them was conscious. While she held on to the door handle with her left hand, she moved her right to her shoulder to prevent her medium-sized brown leather handbag from falling off. She showed a small but friendly smile and finally spoke: "Mrs Almeida?"

Michelle moved from the edge of the bed where she had been sitting, smiling slightly, but tiredly in return. "Yes." she uttered, but realized the look in her eyes must have been inquiring because the woman in the doorframe cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably before speaking up again.

"Uhm... Mrs Almeida, I'm Erica Hammond, Brad Hammond's ex wife." she added quickly as she noticed Michelle's eyes widen somewhat at the first mention of her surname.

Michelle managed to catch herself quickly and even though the way she looked at Mrs Hammond thereafter was not unfriendly, she did ask herself what the aim of this visit was. She didn't reply for a moment.

"May I come in?" Erica asked politely, still outside the room.

"Um... Yes, of course." Michelle quickly replied as her visitor quietly stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

"No, you don't need to get up on my account. Sit." she told Michelle gently as Michelle made a move to stand, and Erica took a few more steps inside, tentatively looked around the room, first at Michelle then at Tony's still form on the bed. "How is he?" she asked, stopping a couple of feet away from the bed.

Michelle sat back on the bed, glanced at Tony worriedly, then looked at Mrs Hammond. "I don't really know." she began. "He hasn't been awake since it happened. There was extensive damage to his inner organs, and he went through several surgeries to repair that. They're keeping him sedated to help his body recover. All they can do now is hope he stays stable."

"I hope he will recover, I really do." Erica told Michelle earnestly, a glint of sadness in her eyes. She paused while Michelle gently touched Tony's arm and their eyes rested on him for a few seconds.

"This is a bit awkward." Erica then continued with a small smile, her hand playing with the strap of her bag. "You're probably wondering what I'm doing here."

I think I have a hunch. Michelle thought, her first surprise overcome, but decided not to interrupt.

"I guess, I suppose I want to tell you a few things in hopes that you'd understand what kind of a man Brad was, or rather why." she said with a sigh and Michelle began to look interested. Mrs Hammond looked at Tony for a moment, then back at Michelle, obviously thinking about how to start. She took a deep breath, looking somewhere into a distance for a few seconds.

"We... we met in college." she began. Her voice was steady, but had a slightly insecure note to it; it might have been the uncertainty how to word things, or doubt that she should even be here at this point, but she was there, and she decided to say what she came to tell Michelle. With a small sigh, she continued: "I guess it was love at first sight. Brad was considerate and thoughtful, fun to be around... He worked for an import company before he got a job from the government. He was always passionate about his work, but it intensified as he started there. Suddenly, he could be gone for days or weeks on assignments and be very irritated as he got home." She directed a knowing smile at Michelle. "I suppose you understand that better than I do, doing the same job." She paused, collecting her words. "Brad wasn't really ready to hear what I wanted to tell him about what happened at home and what needed to be done. He lived for his job."

For a moment or two Erica watched Tony breathe peacefully and rhythmically, aided by the respirator. She could very well imagine that he too, had lived for his job. Michelle didn't interrupt her, but in her mind, she guessed where Erica's recount was going. Then, out of the blue, Erica spoke again: "I could understand that to a degree, but at some point it just got tiring. He was my husband and I needed him to be there with me. Or at least listen to me and talk to me like normal couples do. I didn't stop loving him, I still love him... But the silence was getting to be too much... So, I left him." Erica said. Sadness was beginning to build up in her, and her eyes were reflecting that.

Michelle noticed this and sighed to herself. "I understand that." she uttered. Erica's words were sounding familiar to her. Maybe they had a little more in common than she would have thought. "Why don't you take a seat?" she offered, noticing that Erica was still standing, and she motioned to a chair near the bed.

"Thank you." Erica nodded at the younger woman and sat, feeling a little less like an intruder than minutes ago, but still, not much more comfortable. She looked at Tony again and continued, sighing. "This might... this might appear outrageous, for me to ask of you to understand and try to forgive Brad after what he did to your husband..." Her eyes then found Michelle's. "I just wish to explain why he may have seemed so inconsiderate and cold to you." She paused, and Michelle looked away for a moment, not really sure how to feel. Erica then continued: "He wasn't always like that... He took his job seriously and wanted to do things right."

"We all do." Michelle replied, quietly, but somehow wasn't sure if she really wanted to go down this road of memory with Hammond's ex wife... It seemed inappropriate. Even though anything that might explain Brad's actions could help her understand his reasons, she wasn't sure if she really wanted to hear the justifications and she knew in her heart that she could never forgive him. "Mrs Hammond, you really don't need to apologize for Brad's actions..." she started, but was interrupted.

"I know that, dear. I know..." she breathed in, "that nothing I can say will change what he did, no matter how much I wanted it to. I just want to... tell you why he was the way he was these past years." Erica stopped and turned to look at the white wall of the room. Swallowing a lump in her throat, she continued in a quiet voice:

"We, Brad and I, had a son, our only child. To Brad, Ian was the apple of his eye... Brad might not have talked to me much in all these years, but he spoke to Ian often." She paused, as if collecting herself, or trying to fish the right words from her mind. "Ian worked for Cantor Fitzgerald Securities in New York. He had just been promoted, and he was so happy. I remember talking to him on the phone, he was just telling me that his new office was on the 104th floor of the North Tower when - " She sighed heavily. Unable to go on, she paused for a moment, dabbing a Kleenex at her eyes. Then, she spoke softly, almost to herself. "Ian died on September 11th 2001 in his office in the World Trade Center."

At hearing this, Michelle suddenly felt the need to be even closer to Tony than she already was. It was as if an invisible threatening cloud was hanging over him and she had to protect him. She changed her position on the bed, making sure her body was in contact with his while she sat there. She wanted to say something but no words would come out. Meanwhile, Erica continued.

"This crushed Brad. He knew that he couldn't actually catch the people responsible since they were already dead, but he vowed not to let something like that happen again. He became even more distant, his work became his everything. We were not married any more, but I knew Ian's death had hit him hard, so I tried to stay in contact with him, to see how he was doing. Most of the times I called Brad he was still in the office working on one thing or another. He refused to let it go. I suppose it was his way of dealing with the grief."

Michelle inched a little closer to Erica, looking at her sympathetically. She was now slowly beginning to understand a small part of the person behind Brad Hammond. She reached out, tentatively touching Erica's hand that was resting on her lap. "I'm sorry." Michelle uttered. "I didn't know that."

"Thank you. Seems like time doesn't heal all wounds, at least not yet." Erica said, taking a shivering breath, trying to overcome the tightness in her chest that had built up during the last few minutes. She looked at Michelle sorrowfully and squeezed her hand, getting up from the chair. "I guess I should be going, I don't want to bother you."

"You're not." Michelle said quickly. Even a sad conversation like this one was a welcome change from the anxious sitting by Tony's bed and hoping that no further complications arise. Besides, Michelle realized, she was beginning to feel sorry for Erica, and maybe slightly uncomfortable about feeling so sorry for herself. After all, Erica had lost her only son, and her ex-husband, whom she obviously still loved; and Tony, as injured as he was, well, at least he was still alive and there was a chance he'd recover. Brad and Ian Hammond, on the other hand, would never return.

Erica sent a very slight, reassuring smile towards Michelle and turned to leave, but stopped in the middle of the room to look at Tony. "I don't... I find it hard to believe that Brad would have done this to your husband because there was some animosity between them." Her eyes met Michelle's now and she spoke quietly, almost apologetically, but still, somehow composed. "After Ian died, Brad was angry at everybody; at himself, the government, you, his co-workers and the people behind the 9/11 attacks, of course. He thought they should have and could have been stopped. In his own eyes, he had failed to protect his country and his son."

"And after what happened to you, the way he saw it was that your husband had failed his country and broken his oath by saving you. There was a time Brad would have been more understanding to what happened." she quickly added. "But after Ian... Brad thought that someone who allowed an act of terrorism to happen, let alone helped - no matter how unwillingly - was as much responsible for the outcome as the terrorists themselves."

Michelle's eyes stared at the floor. Now it was her turn to feel a lump in her throat at hearing Erica mention the events both she and Tony had been trying to forget. She swallowed it down; even though the words stabbed her like knives, she couldn't get angry at Erica for throwing them at her. She knew all too well how angry and devastated she would have been if she had lost Tony to a terrorist, God knew there had been enough occasions on which that could have happened. In a way, it was still a possibility, even at this moment.

She understood Hammond's position a little better now; it didn't excuse his negligence in dealing with Tony's so-called case, but Michelle found herself at least somewhat grateful for Erica's visit. She once again glanced at Tony, his eyes closed, and realized that she was hoping he had heard the conversation. Maybe it would make dealing with the pain a little easier.

"I understand that." the Federal Agent in her then said. She wasn't willing to tell Erica that she too, didn't really approve of the choice Tony had made, that she, too, thought he should separate the agent from the Husband better, but the Wife in her knew Tony better than anyone; his love for her was unconditional, undying and in his words, he 'didn't care' what consequences he would have to take upon himself to save her. Even after the hell he'd been through, he would do it again. Michelle very well knew that. But she didn't know how to explain this to an outsider. Nor did she want to.

Eventually, Michelle took a deep breath, then looked at Erica, now wishing for some privacy again. "Thank you for coming." she said sincerely.

"Thank you for listening to what I had to say." she replied, then slowly turned and left the room, closing the door behind her, without barely making a sound.

Michelle stayed back and wanted to lay beside Tony, feel his whole body next to hers, give him all the strength she had so that he would wake up soon and just be with her.