Author's note: Like I said in previous chapters: the creators of "24" own the characters, and Luisa and Alex are all figments of my own imagination.

I apologise for not having updated this story in months, but uni has been really tough this past year, and I have had to focus on that, but I hope to upload the next few chapters in the next few weeks.


Moving Closer…

Tony was standing in his office looking out of the window and raking his fingers through his hair. What was his next move? He had no idea. His mind played on the seven numbers that made up the security code that Alex had given him. 3645263.

Michelle looked down at her daughter, Luisa, who was fast asleep in her arms as she walked into the bullpen at CTU. A smile passed over her lips as she thought how lucky she was to have her rescued for a second time in one night.

As Tony was pondering over the numbers in his mind, his eyes locked onto a sight that he was worried he would never see again. It was Michelle and his little girl. He was so glad that Jack did not actually follow his orders not to rescue Michelle, and he knew that the only thing he had to do now was to apologise to her. With a fear that he would show a weaker side in front of Chloe and the other employees, he knew that he had to get her up to his office, and the sooner the better.

Michelle looked up at her husband's office, she saw him beckoning her. She quickly turned and sat down, and began making a lame attempt at conversation with Chloe. This made Tony's guilty stomach twist. He turned away with another plan.

Somewhere inside the CTU bullpen, a familiar sound of an internal call rang on a phone. A blonde analyst, who has been distracted from her work for long enough decided to answer it to avoid any more pointless discussion.

"O' Brian?"

"Chloe, can you send Michelle up to my office, please?"

"I think that she just wants to have a shower and clean herself up first." The voice was sharp.

"Just send her up; tell her it's an order from Division!" Tony watched through the glass as Chloe turned to Michelle. He saw Michelle sigh, then she got up from her seat and walked towards the stairs.

Before Michelle pushed open the door, she took a deep breath. She put the girl in Tony's chair and tickled her hair. Luisa stirred, but didn't wake. She was much too tired for that. Michelle joined Tony at the window.

"Is this really an order from Division?" Tony heard the note of exhaustion in her voice.

"I need to apologise." He turned around to see that she was hovering her hands over his waist. He took hold of her hands and held them tightly. "Michelle, I'm really s…"

"You have nothing to apologise for, sweetheart. You did what you had to for this little one." Tony planted a kiss on her lips.

"She couldn't have looked out for herself out there, but I'm big enough to get back on my own. Though, I'm glad Jack brought me back." She smiled sweetly at him. "I love you." She whispered.

"Thank you!" He said.

That wasn't the response she was expecting though.

"What are we going to do now?" Michelle asked.

"I have a code that has been bugging me."

"What is it?"

"A security code for the DC servers to authenticate Alex as an agent. It checks out, but there must be more to it."

"Does Lucy know what it is?"

"My sister has no idea at all about Alex, and I'd prefer to keep her in the dark about this."

"Tell me what it is, and I'll send it over to Jack." Michelle reached into her pocket for her Blackberry, but pulled out her mobile phone instead. Tapping away until she opened a new text message screen she waited to enter the numbers.

As Tony read the numbers she pressed them into the phone. She had forgotten to switch it from predictive text mode to numbers, and she looked at the word that she had entered onto her phone.

Author's note: I think that before you proceed with reading my story, you should try out the code for yourself on your own mobile phone.

"Jack should put my sister in an interrogation room." Tony's words were almost silent, and he turned a ghostly white. "Don't send Jack in with her, though. He'll kill her."

Michelle lay a hand on his shoulder. She knew that Tony hadn't seen Lucy since she left America for England all those years ago, and it was clear that she had changed. And if Michelle was honest, she could see a much tougher exterior to Lucy than she could to Tony.