A short while after the helicopter had left Philadelphia, Alex found himself walking into CTUNYC, and as he did, he realised that Jack had been here with his family at one point, that Cole's girlfriend had been a mole here, in the finest CTU tradition of course, and that maybe this place had it's own dark memories floating without respite through the corridors. Walking into the conference room, he noticed Cole immediately, but the rest were unknown to him. A blond man, who was stood at the head of the table, was the first to speak.

"You must be Alex. I guess we should tell you what all of this is about," Peter spoke with a monotone voice. "There's a situation unfolding in Germany involving Jack Bauer. He's missing and there's something foul about the circumstances."

"Are you suspecting me of involvement in his disappearance?," Alex replied, the words sounding annoyed. Shaking his head quickly, Peter explained.

"Not at all, but we need CTU agents on the ground in Stuttgart, and I thought it would be a good idea for you to go along with Cole and the others," Peter spoke, and Alex furrowed his brow. Did he have to be involved simply because it was Jack? A darker thought, that they were simply trying to lure him into a trap, flashed through his mind, but why would they? As far as he knew, Jack had no idea of his pardon and release from jail.

"I thought he was on the run from the government, as well as from the Russians?," Alex asked, remembering the conversation he had with Cole about Jack's activities in the past decade. Even if they did find him and ensured that he was safe, what then? Release him back onto the streets of Stuttgart and hope that neither the American or Russian government knew of his whereabouts? If CTU knew, chances were that the President knew.

"Officially, yes, but unofficially, our government are willing to turn a blind eye to his returning home, if that is necessary. If they had told us sooner, we would have him home with his family already, but President Hayworth only made the decision to look the other way tonight. So, if we can find Jack, we can get him back here, although he'll have to change his identity and keep a very low profile," Peter said, and Alex wondered if such a plan would work. According to Cole, Jack had once faked his death, yet even then he was dragged back into the terrorist and counter-terrorist worlds.

"So he was shot, but they pretended he was dead?," Alex asked Cole, as if to clarify what had happened – Jack Bauer faking his death was not something that would surprise anyone that knew him.

"Yes, and the people who knew that he was still alive ended up being killed, except for Tony," Cole replied. Both Michelle Dessler and President Palmer had died violent and untimely deaths that day, and it had brought Jack back to CTU, not exactly a place Jack loved to be. Alex remembered the day that Jack had visited him to inform him of the deaths, although Jack had said that Tony had died as well. It was only after the pardon and the events a few days before that Alex had found out that Tony was actually still alive.

"I'm surprised that they didn't drag me into CTU that day, they usually did if something major happened. Of course, I told them the truth every time – that I had no involvement in what was going on, that I had no interest in what was going on, and that I had no contact with anyone outside of the jail," Alex spoke, his voice weary as he repeated words that he had said many times before to a CTU agent, usually to the Director. Soon after he was jailed, Erin Watson had been the director of CTULA, and Alex had met her a few times. Then things changed and Erin was replaced by Bill Buchanan, but for a while he had not heard of anyone from CTU, although Cole had explained to him that CTU was shut down for a few years. Alex didn't ask why.

"We'll be heading to Stuttgart within the hour. We'll meet with some BND agents there, and hopefully we'll have much more information on what's going on by then," Cole spoke, his eyes trained on a screen that showed a map of Stuttgart, his hands pointing first to the airport, then to some place where Alex assumed they would meet these BND agents.

"So, are you willing to help us, Alex?," Peter looked at Alex, who decided that there were many reasons to help Jack – for Kim's sake, for Teri's sake and maybe even for Jack's sake. Nodding, he could only hope that the mission would go well, but with Jack and CTU involved, nothing was guaranteed.

Kim's house, Philadelphia

Although it was close to dawn, Kim had not slept at all. Alex had apparently slipped off all radars, and her attempts to contact CTU New York had been fruitless. At one point, she had almost begun to believe that she had dreamt up the past few days and that Alex was still in jail, that Teri had never really been kidnapped. Sighing, she sat up in bed and checked the clock, the glowing yellow numbers hurting her eyes slightly.

"Stephen? Are you awake?," Kim asked quietly, shaking her husband's shoulder gently as to ensure an answer from him.

"I am now, yeah. Is everything OK?," Stephen replied drowsily, before turning around to face Kim.

"Should I be worried about Alex? He's just slipped away and I don't know where he is, or whether he's even still alive!," Kim spoke. She wondered why she was so bothered – it had only been a few hours since Alex had last spoken to her, and he was certainly capable of looking after himself.

"He's probably asleep at home, Kim, like you should be," Stephen said, before letting out a quiet yawn.

"I hope so," Kim spoke, before lying back down. She knew that she would hardly sleep at all, fixated on worries about her friend.

Stuttgart Airport

As they landed, Alex looked out of the window at the German city as the early morning light flooded through into the otherwise dark plane.

"Bet it's going to be strange, isn't it? Meeting Jack again?," Cole spoke. He knew that Jack had visited Alex a few times whilst he was in jail, but this would be very different. If they found Jack, what would happen? Would Alex use the gun he had to shoot him, or would the meeting be without violence of any sort between the two?

"That's if we find him. Don't worry, I have no intention of finishing anything," Alex replied, and he was sure that he did indeed have no intention. Of course, he couldn't tell for sure how he would truly react when he saw Jack, but he knew that he had to keep any thoughts of ending Jack's life out of his mind, if not for Jack, then for Kim and for Morris.

It was a strange dream, but it was one that Alex often found oddly satisfying. He was driving down a street somewhere, in some anonymous city, when he noticed Jack walking down the sidewalk.

Parking up quietly, Alex watched Jack as he walked down the street with no idea of his presence, but as he got out of the car, a gun in his hand, he slammed the door to alert Jack, who must have been unarmed because he suddenly turned and ran around a corner into an alleyway, and Alex decided that enough was surely enough.

Alex was furious as he ran down the alleyway, with Jack not far ahead of him. The surface was uneven and jagged, and as Jack tripped and fell, he let out a groan as his knee made contact with a lump of concrete that stuck out of the ground like a fist. As Jack tried to get back up, he heard a gun click, and he realised that Alex wasn't going to let him get out of there alive. Regrets and guilty thoughts flashed through his mind, as he knelt down in the wet alleyway, his eyes fixed on a pool of water on the ground in front of him. He knew that in a few minutes, the pool would be a mixture of the rain and his blood, as his body would lie within it until he would be discovered.

Alex walked up behind him in silence and place his gun close enough to Jack's neck for him to feel its presence, a sure sign that Jack was not going to live much longer, and he realised that his face had grown pale, both with shock and and with fear.

"Alex, I..," Jack began, only to have the gun pushed hard into his neck, and he stopped. There was silence for a moment, and Alex wondered if he should have let Jack speak. Maybe he would say something that actually meant more than an attempt to save his own life?

Sighing so quietly that even he didn't hear himself, he closed his eyes, before shooting one, two, three, four bullets into Jack's body. The world around him grew eerily silent as he looked down at the dead body, a small pool of blood forming underneath Jack's neck and face.

As he walked out of the alleyway and into the darkened streets, he could hear a distant wail of police sirens, but they seemed so far away that Alex knew he would be long gone before the cops got there. Noticing a sliver of light move in a nearby window, he decided not to hang around any longer and climbed into his car, and as he drove off, he told himself to forget that Jack Bauer ever existed.

That was the dream that Alex had once, and he still remembered it some years later, as if he had only just woken up from that night's sleep.

Oval Office, White House

"Mr President, I have some news from CTU. They're planning a mission to locate Bauer," the same CTU bureaucrat from earlier announced on the phone, as Hayworth listened intently. He felt that the US government did not need to go after Jack as long as Jack could disappear, and if that meant reuniting with his family back home and adopting a new identity, that was something he could live with.

"Good, just make sure that they keep the Russians out of the loop with this, I don't want Moscow any more pissed at me than they already are," Hayworth replied.

"One more thing, Mr President. Director Clarke plans to have former CTU agent Alex Myers involved in the mission," the bureaucrat spoke, and although Hayworth had heard of Myers before – after all, he had pardoned Myers recently - he wasn't sure what the problem was.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?," Hayworth asked.

"Both, in a way. Good, in that Myers was a capable and intelligent agent. Bad, in that he has some history with Bauer that Clarke needs to keep in mind,"

"History, Mr Farrell? What sort of history?"

"Mr President, the reason why Alex Myers is a former agent is because he murdered one agent and then tried to murder Bauer in 2008. There's a lot of blood spilt in those two families, although Myers seems to have a lot of loyalty to Jack's daughter, as you know from when you pardoned him for saving Teri Bauer. You remember the California presidential primary for the Democrats back in 2002?," Farrell spoke.

"Sure, Bauer and CTU were involved deeply in the incidents that occurred that day, right?," Hayworth replied, recalling that dramatic day when former President Palmer was almost killed twice. It had dominated the news for much of that week, with Jack Bauer being hailed a hero for his actions.

"Well, Alex's sister was a mole within the agency, and when she tried to escape after being uncovered that night, she murdered Jack's wife," Farrell said.

"Really? Why would Alex Myers try to kill Jack, then?," Hayworth asked, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to know. It all seemed like a complex web that he as an outsider could never truly understand.

"On the night he was arrested, Alex Myers murdered Chloe O'Brien in order to prevent her from stopping a computer worm that his sister had implanted into the CTU system. The worm was defeated, Nina Myers was taken to CTU and attempted to escape. According to both Alex and Jack, Alex found Jack moments after he had killed Nina, and Alex tried to murder him, but was prevented from doing so by a couple of other agents," Farrell finished his explanation as Hayworth listened closely to the story of a dramatic feud. Whilst he had pardoned Myers himself, he had simply been told of the murder charge, and the attempted murder charge had seemingly vanished into thin air.

CTU New York

Peter had been informed of the team's arrival in Stuttgart, and now alls he had to do was keep in constant contact both with the team and with the President. He was tired but willing to override his natural urge to sleep to play his role as the middle man between the man at the top, and the team on the ground. Hayworth had taken a personal interest in the mission, and Peter knew that he had to make sure the plan went as smoothly as possible, although experience with others who had known Bauer told him that with Jack, things almost never went smoothly – in fact, they went as roughly as the Himalayas on a map of Asia.

"Mr President, they've received no new information from the German agents since the last time we spoke, but they're confident that Bauer can be found," he spoke via video phone to an equally tired Hayworth, who was hoping that the decision to both send CTU agents into a foreign country and to send Alex Myers along with them would not be a fatal decision, although he knew that if Myers and Bauer were to meet, there was potential for things to get violent very quickly.

"Well, if you do get anything new, make sure I know as soon as, I want to be kept up to date with this. I took a risk pardoning a murderer for a reason the public won't find out, and you're certainly taking a risk giving him a gun and sending him to find a man he once tried to kill," Hayworth replied.

"The pardon won't ever be public knowledge, Mr President, I assure you. Back when David Palmer was President, he pardoned Alex's sister on the same day she helped terrorists in an attempt to nuke Los Angeles. Now, things worked out OK there, but if they hadn't, that would have meant countless deaths being blamed on Palmer, and the complete and utter destruction of his career," Peter said, knowing that the pardon was known to very few people. The people working at the prison had simply been told that he was being transferred to a different jail for reasons of national security, whilst most CTU agents outside of New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles had no idea that Alex Myers was now out of jail.

BND building, Stuttgart

The CTU team had met with the BND agents, and now they were sat in a dark office building that was unofficially rented by BND for surveillance purposes. Theo Stoller sat down and looked over at Alex, knowing that he was someone who had once tried to kill Jack Bauer.

"You're Theo Stoller, right? You've met Jack before, I believe," Alex spoke, recalling something Cole had told him about on the plane. Scoffing, Theo looked away for a second, before returning his gaze.

"Yeah, I did, although I didn't try and kill him afterwards," Stoller replied, and Alex was about to respond when Cole came rushing into the room.

"We've located him! Some gang grabbed him off the street and took him to a building in an industrial park!," Cole announced, before running out of the room as fast as he had arrived.

Tony's hideout, Stuttgart

As Cole went around to approach Tony from the far side of the gloomy room, Alex stood and watched from the shadows in silence, listening in to the conversation, noticing where Tony stood and where Jack knelt. He had an uneasy feeling that the dream on the plane to Philadelphia, the one involving Tony, was almost a prophecy of the situation he found himself witnessing, and about to enter.

"I'm sorry, Jack, but it's all over," Tony spoke quietly, with a slight hint of regret that he may or may not have wanted Jack to hear, and lifted his gun slowly to aim it straight at Jack's forehead. Deciding to make his own presence known, Alex moved silently out of the shadows slightly, his body still half-shrouded in darkness. He cocked his gun, and caught both Tony and Jack's attention, the looks of surprise on each face almost identical.

"Hello, Tony, Jack," Alex spoke, his voice barely above a whisper, his gun aimed at Tony's head.

"Who let you out of your cage?," Tony almost hissed at Alex, who was keeping his eyes solely on Tony, knowing that he might have to shoot dead his former friend. Alex moved his eyes quickly to Cole, before looking straight back at Tony.

"He did," Alex replied, and both Jack and Tony looked to see Cole, who was also aiming his gun directly at Tony, although his eyes were trained on Jack's face, Jack himself astonished and feeling almost betrayed by the revelation.

"Cole, what the hell are you doing? Alex Myers is a dangerous man, and cannot be trusted!," Jack spoke with a similar tone to that of Tony, and the fact that Alex was, or at least seemed to be, working with Cole caused some confusion in his mind. Had Cole betrayed his country, or was it Alex who had changed sides? Jack didn't know which one to believe, although he felt a preference for the latter. Not just because it would mean that Cole had indeed not betrayed his country, but because it would mean that his former friend was somehow redeeming himself. The thought that Alex was somehow working with Tony also went through his mind, but Jack thought it was a distant third in the list of possibilities.

"He wouldn't be here if I didn't think I could trust him, Jack," Cole replied, his eyes still focussed on Tony.

"What's that supposed to mean? Why are you so sure that you can trust him?," Jack said, his gaze now on Alex. Why would Cole Ortiz, a CTUNYC agent, trust a former agent who had been behind bars for ten years? Then it dawned on him, and he looked furious. He swung his head quickly to stare at Cole.

"Tell me you didn't, Cole...tell me you didn't pardon him?," Jack spoke, and his face had grown pale. The thought of Alex being pardoned, cleared of his crimes was something that Jack just could not comprehend. What had Alex given them in return?

"Jack, he didn't even want the pardon, but what he did-," Cole began to explain, but Jack cut him off.

"What the hell could Alex Myers do for you, Cole? What?," Jack yelled, forgetting that he was restrained and kneeling down, and even Tony stepped back slightly.

"I saved Teri's life, that's what I did, Jack," Alex replied, and both Jack and Tony looked at him, amazed. Both knew who Teri was, but neither would have guessed that Alex would somehow be saving Teri's life, and that Cole would somehow be involved.

"You did what? How?," Jack spoke, his voice quieter, his eyes and face moving between Alex and Cole a few times, before stopping to gaze at Cole.

"We needed someone who knew you, Jack, someone who could impersonate you enough to convince the people who kidnapped your granddaughter that he was Jack Bauer, in order to save her. He did it brilliantly, Jack," Cole replied. The tension in the room would almost have evaporated, if it weren't for the fact that three guns were aimed at various heads. Alex looked over at Tony, who seemed close to pulling the trigger, and he knew that he had to make a decision, even if that decision was a fatal one. Then a thought came to his head, but although he was concerned that it might trigger anger in either Jack or Tony, he knew that he had to give it a shot.

"We're more alike than you might think, you know? Teri, Nina, Michelle, we've all lost someone we loved, we've all felt anger at their deaths and we all wanted to act on that anger," Alex spoke quietly, knowing that his words probably had little positive effect, and why would they? It was surely obvious to Jack, and to Tony, that all three of them had suffered the loss of a wife or a sister. All of them had sought revenge for those deaths, but only one had found out for sure that killing the one who had murdered their loved one would not bring back their loved one.

"Where was all this pop psychology crap when you murdered Chloe and tried to murder me, Alex?," Jack spoke, his voice bitter and angry. He was not seeing the point of talking about similarities, about reasons why they were all connected, as if they weren't already connected enough by blood and death. Sighing, Alex noticed that Tony was looking at Jack and unable to see him, and he fired a bullet into Tony's shoulder, sending him crashing to the floor, the quick action acting as a real anti-climax to the dramatic tension of the past few moments.

"What the hell?," Tony yelled, and he lunged at his gun, only for Cole to kick it away. Alex walked over to Jack and crouched down near him.

"Before I remove your restraints, Jack, I want to know something," Alex spoke. He could almost feel Jack's eyes burning into him, and it was Jack who guessed what Alex wanted to know.

"You want to know if I murdered Nina," Jack replied. Did he even know that himself? He was tired, he was a heroin addict and he was angry at Nina and everyone else who was threatening to hurt innocents, including Kim. He would swear on his own daughter's life that he had seen Nina try and reach her gun, but was even he fully convinced that she could have even took hold of it, never mind used it?

"Jack, I watched you shoot my sister in cold blood at least three times, I could see no reason why she was a threat to you, and then you just seemed so unconcerned that you had wiped out someone's entire existence, that Teri would never have wanted you to avenge her. If I had arrived a few seconds earlier, if Kim had never risked her life to go after Nina, maybe things would be different, but there's too many maybes, and they stretch back far before Teri's death," Alex said, his eyes looking between Jack and Tony, who was himself kneeling unrestrained, his bloodied arm and pale face the only signs that he had been shot.

"I don't think I could ever give you an answer that would satisfy you, Alex," Jack spoke. He wondered what Alex had thought about in jail, what had been running through his mind every day he had spent behind bars? Alex was about to say something, but the sound of a gun and Jack falling backwards in pain as the bullet entered his lung distracted him. Rushing to adopt a defensive position, he swore loudly.

"I thought we had cleared the building, Cole?," Alex shouted as they scanned the other side of the room for signs of the shooter, a difficult enough task without the possibility of both Tony and Jack bleeding to death from their respective gunshot wounds.

"I was told that the building was clear!," Cole replied, hoping that it was indeed one of Tony's men, but he had both experience of and heard stories of moles and infiltrators, and he pleaded to himself that the shooter was not one of their own agents. Even though it had been a couple of years since Dana's death, he was still suffering the aftershocks of betrayal.

"Whoever you are, come out with your hands up! The building is surrounded by US and German federal agents!," Alex shouted, before repeating what he had said in slightly broken German, a language he had not used in some years, and his voice sounded alien to him for a second. He wished that the room at least had more than the one poor source of light, a long and thin fluorescent light that was obviously going to fail at any minute. His tired eyes looked around the darkness at the far end of the room, searching for the shooter, the room itself now eerily quiet except for the occasional groan from Jack, who was lying on the floor, his eyes staring straight up, his consciousness about to fade away.

"Jack, try and stay awake!," Cole yelled, his eyes and gun trained on the darkness from where the shot had come from. It wasn't exactly the way anyone wanted it, and he knew that unless they could somehow eliminate the threat of this shadowy enemy, that Jack and possibly Tony would die of their wounds long before they could be treated. Noticing movement on the other side of the room, both Cole and Alex shot at the shadowy figure, which crumpled to the floor. Slowly, they moved closer, their guns still trained on the person, unsure as to whether he or she was alone, or if there was another gunman waiting to start shooting as soon as they approached. Reaching the body, Cole and Alex made sure the area was clear of anyone else, before Cole knelt down next to the body and measured the now weak pulse of the young man.

"He's alive, but he'll need treatment as soon as possible or he'll be dead within hours," Cole spoke quietly. He found the bullet wounds – one to the right arm, one through the left lung, and grimaced. The young man looked exactly that – young, probably no more than twenty five. Alex turned around to look at Tony, who was staring at them with half-open eyes.

"Who is he, Tony? Why is he working for you?," Alex asked, and Tony shrugged, which caused him to wince as his injury screamed in protest at the movement.

"His name's David, and he's doing it simply for the money. Apart from that, I know little about him. Is he dead?," Tony replied. He was telling the truth, mostly, although he knew a little bit more about David. He knew that David was a young man who had gotten involved in bad crowds ever since he was a teenager, and in some convoluted way, he had managed to get himself involved in terrorism, and he had accepted the life of a terrorist a long time ago. Tony wondered if David's story had any similarity with that of Nina's, but he couldn't see Nina being involved with the wrong crowds. She had been an intelligent, hard-working person, who had spent years at college and university, who had worked for several high-profile organisations. Maybe her path into terrorism was one paved with greed and lack of concern for human life, as if she changed into a monster over the years. Whether that change was something she encouraged within her herself, or whether it gradually evolved, Tony didn't know and didn't particularly care.

At that point, the CTU team poured into the room, Tony being lifted up and marched away, whilst some of the agents checked on the unconscious Jack and David, and as this flow of people rushed through the room, Alex watched them, watched the surreal scene of two former friends, one lying close to death and the other bleeding and handcuffed. Both of them had been on the run over the past few years – one from jail, the other from two governments.