The last bit took us forward a little. I'm gonna jump back here so I hope it's all still coherent. We'll catch up to where Tony's POV left off soon enough... Thanks for reading and for reviewing! I hope you continue to enjoy it. :)

...

And so life had begun again. It was a struggle in so many ways, but it was the brutal privilege of being human* and Tony & Michelle were happy. Good days and bad days, joy and pain, but always moving forward, upward. The scars would always be seared across his heart, and at times would itch, but the wounds healed. There were moments when Tony doubted himself as a man, as Michelle's husband and eventually as a father, but Michelle was always stepped into the dark and pulled him back to the truth; the only obstacle in his life was unfounded fear and doubt. He did his part; he let her. He would wake up and let her comfort him. He would doubt himself but let her trust him. When she would blame herself Tony would assure her she was worth every little sacrifice. "We did what we had to do. Now it's over." He would always tell her. That was the fact of it.

Tony woke up to the sound of retching. When the sound finally cleared through the fog of sleepiness, Tony sat up abruptly. The sun was dull through the shades.

"Michelle?"

In response there was a pathetic moan from the bathroom.

He got out of bed quickly and found Michelle hunched over the toilet bowl.

"Hi." She said in a pathetic voice. "I think I'm done." Then she spit into the bowl.

Tony filled a cup of water and knelt down next to her. "Here." he said, pushing the hair out of her face and handing her the cup.

He felt her head as she sipped the water. "You're not hot. What did we eat last night?"

"I'm pregnant, Tony." She said dead pan.

His eyes widened. "No way!"

"Yes way."

Tony started laughing. Then he picked Michelle up and carried her to the bed. He tucked her in and kissed her saying "Go back to sleep, my love."

"You are ridiculous." She mumbled as she nuzzled herself into the blankets.

"When did you find out?" He whispered very closely to her almost concealed face.

She smiled. Even though her eyes were closed she could tell how close Tony's face was to hers. He was breathing on her as he spoke.

"Yesterday. I was going to tell you in a special way today, but I gave up when you walked into the the bathroom."

"Well, that was pretty special." He laughed and then kissed her one more time. Then he left the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Tony soon became filled with a fear that Michelle did not leave unchallenged. That was something he appreciated dearly about Michelle. Her ability to help him see things clearly. She loved her husband and was totally supportive of him though his internal struggles, but sometimes she would let his doubt get to her. There were moments when she feared that Tony would just run away and she would be left a single mother. She convinced herself that it was the hormones talking. Still, it upset her more than anything. It got to the point once, where she needed to express it to him and she did. Tony was crushed by her doubt and they didn't speak for almost 2 days. He thought about her words constantly until he finally understood. There were countless times where he said he couldn't do this, that he was nothing. It was only reasonable that his oft-expressed doubt would eventually wear at his wife. Michelle and Tony, for the sake of their marriage's survival, had made themselves vulnerable and shared a rare channel of totally open communication. Michelle's admission of doubt closed that channel. More accurately, Tony had closed it out of feeling hurt. To prove to her that he did not want that channel closed permanently, Tony took his wife to the beach where he had proposed to her and there they sat until the sun set over the Pacific. He told her that he would never leave. It was because she believed in him that he came to believe again. He reminded her that she was the one who had been right all along. Any fear and doubt was born in Tony's heart and that is where it stayed. It didn't exist in the reality of their relationship. In the solitude and trust of their tiny universe against the cosmos that the ocean appeared to be, Michelle took her long overdue turn to bear her soul. All the pain and all the fear. All the joy and all the contentment. Sitting in the sand with his newly pregnant wife, Tony held her while she wept and listened to everything she said. He owed this to her and it was his way of reaching out. It was his word of love and assurance that he was speaking to her, this night on the beach.

Around the same time that Michelle became pregnant, the two of them had begun steady plans for a security consulting company that they would run together. Tony had begun a couple of months after prison in the wake of denied application after denied application, but his planning and research were inconsistent and because of what was going on inside him he found it difficult to stay motivated. As he grew stronger from his struggles and found better ways to cope, Michelle and he got started on plans again. Michelle had no reason to stay at CTU anymore. Although she tried to deny it to herself, she now harbored a grudge against the government and no longer wanted to be employed by it. Neither had she ever recovered her love for the job after Tony's conviction and the subsequent events. By the time Michelle was 6 months pregnant, she and Tony had their business up and running. It was so perfect. They got to work from home and they got to work together. It was like their CTU days, but without the drama and the strain. The Almeidas invited Jack to join them, as a friend and as a fantastic asset to the budding business. Having been fired from CTU, he agreed. At present Jack was living on severance and spending lots of time with Kim, Chase and Angela. He wanted to stay close to his family and was now offered a safe job that still required his expertise. Not only that, but he would be working with his two closest friends. The entire situation for all involved was nothing less than ideal.

Not one of them forgot the fact that circumstances and they themselves were incredibly fortunate.

*"The brutal privilege of being human." is a quote from Torey Hayden in one of my favorite books, "Murphey's Boy".