He'd been dreading today for weeks. Tomorrow he'd have to go back to work, proper work, not the babysitting jobs Chappelle had been assigning him to keep him as far away from Division as possible and to force him to watch as Michelle isolated herself from the world. He almost looked forward to it, it would be refreshing to do something that actually required a brain cell, not to mention it would give him an opportunity to get Michelle away from a computer screen.
The day he learnt that it would just be him and Michelle alone for 6 weeks, his heart had skipped a beat. But far from being the enjoyable experience he had imagined, the silence and distance between them had been unbearable, and he was so sick of it. He needed something to distract them. And somewhere within himself, he still hoped that he could touch her again without her flinching away, that he could hold an actual conversation with her where she actually responded to what he said, that he could meet her eyes without being overwhelmed by the pain in them. He hoped that with CTU back to normal, she might somehow return to normal. He didn't care if they were just friends, he just didn't want to see her like this anymore.
OK, so that wasn't exactly true, he wanted them to be a lot more than friends. On the rare occasion when he could get her away from the computer and force some food down her throat, memories of the brief moments when he had supposed her to be his overwhelmed him. He'd find himself lost in memories of her fingers in his hair and the trail of shivers they left as they danced the way down his back. Somewhere he hoped that the distraction of CTU might bring that back.
But that was tomorrow, and it was too far off to even be contemplating. Today he had to officially reopen CTU, and that meant he had to give a speech at the memorial they'd created to mark those who had died.
He'd been working on it for weeks, but somehow his words just seemed hollow, they were just words, how could they possibly convey his feelings, how could they possibly make the huge loss of life that had occurred seem justified. How could they possibly combat the huge sense of guilt that he had, that he'd carried ever since that day. He lived where so many had died.
Michelle stared blankly at her reflection. It was unpleasant, showing signs of her recent disregard for pretty much everything. She didn't know why she was doing this, couldn't fathom why she'd isolated herself from the world. The protocol was big, but if she was honest, she was pouring a lot more of herself than was needed into it. She just hurt so much, and it was the only way that she could come up with to try and get rid of her pain. Every day she would go to work, knowing he would be there. She honestly didn't know why she did it to herself. She should get herself transferred out. But that idea scared her even more than having to go to work and face him.
She knew she shouldn't be hurting this much, the whole point of pulling herself away from him was that it wasn't supposed to hurt, that she'd secure her job and protect herself from the pain that would inevitably follow getting involved with him. But she'd already fallen too deeply, and although she could pull herself back without the embarrassment of everyone in the office watching, she ached for him, and having to go to work every day, watching him, seeing his eyes filled with a pain that she knew she had caused, was more than she could bear.
And today was going to be the worst of all. Today he was going to give his speech when he reopened the memorial. She'd been watching him as he agonised over the details of what he had to say, she knew how hard things like this were for him. And although there would be the distraction of everyone else being there, she knew that all she would see would be him, all she would be able to feel was his pain.
Biting on her lower lip, she pulled back her hair into a severe ponytail, today was about remembering, not about looking good, and she certainly didn't want to attract any attention. All she wanted to do was get through the day without breaking down in front of anyone, without breaking down in front of Tony.
The first thing he noticed was her. He could see that she'd constructed her appearance so that she wouldn't attract attention, but his eyes were automatically drawn to her. He knew that this would be hard for her, he'd seen the same guilt he felt reflected in her eyes, they both had too many demons about that day to ever be able to deal with, and the way they'd been going, today was going to be particularly bad for both of them.