An application email to Division was all it took. Sure, it went over Tony's head, but it presented her with the interview she wanted. Hammond seemed genuinely surprised at her interest in the position, and she had a small feeling Tony might have implied she felt otherwise to him around the time he'd comprised his list of alternate candidates.

Once Hammond had been alerted of her wishes to move up, the interview took place the next afternoon. Tony was present, though he seemed to look through her instead of at her, and asked her all the standard questions he would've asked the other applicants. Hammond jumped in with his own queries, and, to her great surprise, he completed the interview with a reference to her recent good work.

She wasn't sure why it shocked her, but being offered the position did. Both Hammond and Chapelle set up a meeting, at which Tony was conspicuously absent, and went through the niceties of the promotion. She'd be pushed up a further two pay grades, assume far greater responsibility, and would be subjected to further training, though she didn't mind at all.

That very afternoon she was able to transfer across to the newly repaired Chief of Staff station, and couldn't help but feel Tony watching her from his own office as she did.

Perhaps even more surprising than the promotion was the knock at her door at half past nine that night. She'd been sipping a glass of wine in lonely celebration of her professional advancement when the thud resonated through her living room. When she opened the door she found Tony standing on her porch, still wearing his dark suit from work, looking as hesitant as he did resolute.

She raised her eyebrows, feeling stunned to see him.

'What are you doing here?'

He didn't quite meet her eye.

'Can I come in?' he asked.

She stared at him.

'No.'

He scratched his face, looking exasperated.

'I want to talk to you.'

'So?'

'So let me in.'

'What if I don't want to talk to you?'

'Look,' he said, glancing around the dimly lit porch where she'd once bit his lip. 'I just want to say some things. That's all.'

Sensing that he wasn't of a mind to give up, she gave him a foul look and walked away from the door, allowing him inside. He closed it behind him, his gaze passing over her couch for several long moments, and then passing over her. She felt mildly self-conscious, standing in a pair of baggy pants and a dark green singlet – her version of pyjamas. Her hair was down too, falling chaotically over her shoulders, and his eyes unashamedly took in the sight. She quickly grabbed the hair tie from around her wrist and swept her curls into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. He didn't comment.

'So?' she said again, folding her arms, feeling wretched to have him back in her place, standing in the same spot where they'd swayed together, embracing wildly. 'What do you have to say?'

He took in a breath, and folded his own arms.

'Turn down the promotion.'

'I'm sorry?'

'Turn it down. Go back to IP level. Or take another job. Or transfer somewhere else. I don't care which.'

Michelle couldn't believe what she was hearing. A wave of hurt crashed over her as his words settled between them. Take another job? Transfer somewhere else? He really didn't care, so long as he didn't have to work with her every day, or even look at her anymore. She wanted to feel nothing at his words, but in truth they sliced at her, and she found she was in agony.

Tony seemed to gleam all this from her face, and rubbed at his forehead.

'I know I'm hurting you,' he said softly. 'And that's not what I want. But I do want you to turn it down.'

'Why are you doing all of this?' she asked him, her voice startlingly honest. She needed to know. She needed to understand why he was breaking her heart. 'Did I do something wrong that night? Something you didn't like?'

He gazed at her for a very long time.

'The position is field certified,' he eventually said.

'Huh?' she asked, leaning forward slightly, thinking she must have misheard him.

'Field certified,' he said, louder this time. 'You have to be field certified to be Chief of Staff.'

'Yes,' she said, frowning. 'I know. I start my training tomorrow afternoon.'

They endured almost ten seconds of total silence.

'You're kidding, right?' she exclaimed, when he said nothing further. 'That's what this is? You don't think I should be Chief of Staff because I have to be field certified?'

He said nothing.

'So what?' she continued madly. 'Women can't be field certified now, according to you? That is the most backward thing I've ever heard in my life!'

'If you'll calm down,' he said derisively, 'you'll realise I didn't say anything about women at all. This isn't about women. This is about you.'

'Right,' she said. 'So I can't be field certified because we slept together? That's hardly better.'

He waited patiently for her to finish.

'I can't let this go forward,' he said. 'I can't allow you to become certified.'

'You're certified.'

'That's –'

'Different? How? Because I'm not capable?'

'I think you're as capable as anyone. But I won't have you out in the field, not knowing the things I do about you.'

Michelle opened her mouth to retort, and then fell silent as she comprehended his words. What did he mean? What things?

'Look, you were prepared to sacrifice a lot of things for the Cyprus recording,' he explained to her. 'For national security and international peace. You were willing to lose your job, to lose me, to lose your freedom over it. Sending you out into the field where in all likelihood you'll show the same dedication – where you'll do everything you can for what's right – is insane. People die that way. In fact, people like you…well, they're the people who die first. Please believe me when I say I know this for a fact.'

Michelle stared blankly at him.

'Tell me I don't have a point,' he implored her. 'Sending you out into life threatening situations is as good as killing you. So I'm asking you to turn down the job. Tell me you wouldn't do the same thing if our roles were reversed.'

She chewed her bottom lip for a moment, cycling through his statement.

'This is some chivalrous thing,' she murmured, mostly to herself. 'That's why you stopped me from interviewing. That's all it is.'

He shrugged.

'I know it's not my place,' he conceded, 'but I don't care.'

'You're right,' she agreed. 'It's not your place at all. We're not even together…'

'Yeah,' he said, looking penitent. 'About that – '

'Answers?' she asked mockingly. 'Am I about to get answers?'

He glared at her.

'You know,' he said thoughtfully, 'you're really very irritating when you're angry.'

'I could care less,' she quipped.

He looked almost as though he wanted to grin.

'Yeah, I'm aware,' he said. 'Look, I left that morning –'

'Without a word.'

'Christ, will you just let me finish?'

She sighed, retrieved her wine glass and sipped from it, trying to look bored.

'They called me in at three in the morning. You hadn't slept in over thirty-six hours, so I was hardly going to wake you just to say I had to go to work. I planned to ring you at a more civilised hour, but by that point I knew where I was going. What was I supposed to say then, huh? "Morning Michelle, off on a covert operation for an unknown amount of time with Kingsley's people. Chapelle found a way in and I had to take it. Jack's still recovering and everyone else is dead, so it's me. I might die. I also might not. Try to have a good day."

Michelle spluttered slightly over her wine.

'That's what you were doing? You were in with Kingsley's crew? Are there more people behind him?'

'Well, that was the point of the operation,' he said stoically. 'To ascertain the depth of the conspiracy.'

'Did you?'

He shrugged.

'It was mostly intel gathering. The leads are being worked up now.'

'Intel gathering?' she probed. 'The dangerous kind or…?'

He shrugged once more.

'Every operation has its risks,' he answered evasively. Michelle knew right away that the operation had been considerably dangerous and he simply didn't want to tell her. 'But that made me realise how stupid we are for starting something between us.'

'It did?'

'Things like this happen all the time,' he told her. 'Being called in at three in the morning for an operation, one I might not return from, can happen frequently. Not knowing how to tell you, or if I even should, will happen all the time. So will having to work out if you have the clearance required to know why I'm gone, and hating myself when I realise you don't. And now, if you continue on with this promotion, it'll be you in the field, and you won't know how to tell me, or how to make me feel at ease, and I'll hate you for going, and you'll hate me for trying to stop you from doing your job.'

He drew in a tormented breath.

'CTU isn't the place for relationships. That's been made clear to me many times, and yet we just had dinner and rolled into bed together as though I'd forgotten all the things I knew. Spending time with Kingsley's men…well, that just served to remind me of how stupid it was. It reminded me of how badly we could hurt each other, just because of our jobs. That's why I broke it off.'

He looked up at her, searching her face. She placed her glass down and ran a hand over her knotty hair.

'You broke it off because of an operation?' she said. 'Because you think we'll hurt each other that way? Why…why didn't you just say that?'

'I broke it off because I'm in love with you,' he said. 'But I was hardly going to use that as the reason.'

They locked eyes for nearly five full seconds and in that time Michelle felt all the despair and insecurity of the past weeks leave her. In love with her? Had he really said that?

'You…you think I'm not in love with you too?' she asked him candidly.

His face went blank.

'You are?'

She nodded once, unable to resist rolling her eyes at him as she did.

'You should've said something that morning,' she said tiredly. 'Just something, instead of making me wonder for so long.'

'Yeah, I do know that, thanks,' he said shortly.

She looked up at him, blinking as though she'd just stepped out into the morning sun.

'So, are you here to make up with me?' she asked shrewdly.

'No,' he said. 'No. I won't be in a relationship with you if you're field certified.'

'You won't be in a relationship with me,' she said slowly, 'but it's alright to be in love with me?'

He didn't answer. She watched him closely. He looked very tired.

'I'm not turning down the promotion,' she informed him. 'So then where does that leave us? We just go to work every day, in love but pretending we're not? We just function around each other, ignoring what we want until one of us finds someone new?'

His face turned stony at that.

'Turn down the promotion,' he said quietly, 'and we can be together.'

'That's a sick ultimatum,' she said, interested by the fact that both their voices were calm – gentle, even. 'And you should feel ashamed for offering it to me.'

'I do,' he said. 'Trust me, I do.'

'Tony…'

'I should go. I just…I wanted to explain myself. Like I said, I don't want to hurt you.'

'You have already.'

He nodded, dejection etched across his face.

'Yeah, I know. Look, I'll see you tomorrow, alright?'

She nodded too, suddenly craving his embrace.

'Tony?' she stopped him on his way to the door. He looked back. 'Get some sleep, okay?'

'Yeah,' he said, his eyes racing across her as she freed her curls from the hair tie – a parting gift to him. 'Yeah, you too.'

'Night.'

His expression was hard and his smile obligatory, as though it pained him either to look at her or leave her. She suspected it was both.

'Night.'

appreciates the opium, so thanks :)