Chapter Twenty-Eight

Monday morning dawned bright and early. Tony had spent the night again at Michelle's, which meant they both had to get up earlier than normal so Tony could stop by his house for clean clothes.

"I'll see you this afternoon," he whispered as he said good-bye at her door. She was going to Division this morning for the interviews while he and Jack worked back at C.T.U. She was envious of them, as she did not want to go to Division and possibly face Carrie again.

"And don't worry about Carrie," he added on his way out, as if reading her mind. "You'll be too busy with those interviews to even talk to her."

Michelle gave him a smile and another kiss good-bye. She finished getting dressed and made her way to Division, knowing today was going to be a long day. As she drove she let herself worry about the fact that she and Tony had had sex many times without the use of protection. What if she got pregnant?

Oh my God, that was the last thing she needed! She was trying to start a relationship with the man she knew she was in love with… a baby would ruin everything.

Okay, think, Michelle, she told herself. She did the calculations in her head and knew that in two weeks she should get her period. She was always regular, so she'd know then.

Sighing, Michelle turned on the radio and tried to redirect her thoughts to the day ahead. Like she told Tony last night, there was nothing they could do at this point.

Thirty-five minutes later Michelle parked at Division, grabbed her laptop and headed inside. She passed through security and made her way to Chappelle's office.

"Hi, Michelle," Chappelle said when she knocked on his door.

"Hi, Mr. Chappelle. Where will I be able to conduct my interviews?" she asked.

Chappelle exited his office and started walking down a hallway. Michelle kept her gaze on the end of the hall, avoiding looking towards the door that led to the I.T. department where Carrie worked.

"You can use this office," Chappelle said, stopping at a corner office. "I'll have Security route your interviewees up here."

"Thanks," she said, setting her briefcase and laptop down on the desk.

"How many people are you interviewing?" he asked, lingering in the doorway.

Michelle turned on her laptop and looked up at him. "Twelve. One every half hour."

"Good," he said. "Stop by my office on your way out and let me know how it goes."

"No problem," she said and sat down behind the desk as he walked away. She glanced at her watch and had twenty minutes to get herself prepared for a long day.

It was after three o'clock when Michelle was ready to leave Division. She had a raging headache, but there were a few good possibilities that came from the interviews. She had gotten Chappelle's opinion and would go over them with Tony as well before calling anyone back for a second interview. That one would be conducted by Tony, with her sitting in as well.

Michelle breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped into the elevator and pressed the garage button. Not only had the interviews gone fairly well, but she hadn't seen Carrie either. That was a definite perk to the day. Hopefully, she wouldn't need to go back to Division headquarters for a very long time, thus avoiding Carrie even further.

She barely suppressed a groan when the elevator door swung open on the 3rd floor and Carrie walked in. Why?

Michelle gritted her teeth and stared straight ahead, avoiding her eyes.

"Hi, Michelle," she said sarcastically, as usual. "How are you?"

"Don't even bother trying to play the polite game, Carrie," Michelle said.

"Wow, are you always this grouchy any more?" Carrie asked. "I'd think sleeping with the boss would put you in a better mood."

Michelle whirled her head around and glared at her. "Who do you think you are? Stop trying to intimidate me, Carrie, because you're wasting your breath."

"Oh, the kitten has grown claws," Carrie mocked. "I'll be sure to tell Chappelle that when I inform him of you and Tony's little meeting in the hallway last week."

Michelle smirked at her, determined not to let her see how worried Chappelle finding out made her. "Don't threaten me, Carrie. You can tell Chappelle whatever you want to. You have no proof of what happened anyway, so I'd be careful if you value your job. Tony and I were key players in adverting disaster with that Cyprus tape; who do you think Chappelle is going to believe?"

Carrie paled a little, much to Michelle's satisfaction. "We'll see."

Michelle stepped out of the elevator and headed for her car without another word. Her heart pounded for the encounter, but she was glad she stood up for herself and put Carrie in her place. If only her threat worked. She and Tony would be in hot water if Chappelle found out.

He'll find out eventually anyway, she thought, if things continue the way they are with Tony.

This brought a smile to her face as she reached for her cell phone.

Tony settled back in his chair and rubbed a hand across his forehead. Jack had gone downstairs to get them both a coke from the vending machine, as they were in dire need of some caffeine to continue. A good amount of progress had been made between the two of them as they mapped out how their separate departments would work, but there were still issues they needed to finish addressing.

His mind wandered to Michelle and it brought a smile to his face for the first time all day. Tony still couldn't believe the weekend they had had together. He had never been so happy in his life, even when he was with Nina. Michelle seemed to fit perfectly in his life and he knew he loved her, even if he hadn't told her yet. He didn't want to scare her off; even though he had the feeling she felt the same way about him. How could two people fall so quickly in love? Although, they had been flirting with each other for over a year now, he guessed it didn't take long when they finally gave in to the sparks. And what an explosion it caused.

Tony's thoughts were interrupted when his cell phone rang. "Almeida."

"Hey, it's me."

He smiled broadly. "I was just thinking about you."

"Really?" she asked. "Good or bad?"

"Oh, definitely good," he said. "Well, on the second thought, maybe they were bad…"

She laughed at his playfulness. "Now, now, Almeida, we're working here. Concentrate."

"Slave driver," he teased. "Okay, how did the interviews go?"

"Pretty well. I have a couple good possibilities," she said. "I went over them with Chappelle since he can't not stick his nose into everything."

He laughed as Jack walked back in the room. "Yeah, that's Chappelle for you."

"I'm on my way over to you right now. How's it going with Jack?"

"Good," he said.

Jack sat back down and opened his coke, waiting for Tony to finish up his conversation.

As much as he wanted to keep talking to her, he knew he needed to get back to work. "Okay, well, I'll see you when you get here. Just come up to my office."

"Okay. See ya soon."

"Bye." Tony hung up and placed his phone on the desk, reaching for his coke at the same time.

"Michelle?" Jack asked.

Tony nodded. "Yeah. She's done with the interviews and headed over here to help out."

"Good," Jack replied. "I wanted to thank her for her help last week. I'd have never made it without her."

"Yeah, she was a huge contributor to making it through that day. I couldn't have done it without her," Tony admitted, leaning back in his chair.

"What exactly changed your mind anyway?" Jack asked. "I mean, Michelle indicated from our conversations that she was going behind your back to do this. What happened to change your mind?"

"Well, I didn't think Syed Ali was credible enough to believe, especially after our experts confirmed the authentity of the recording," Tony explained. "But as everything started happening, I knew the recording had to be a fake or no one would go through the trouble of trying to kill Wallace or destroy the source recordings."

Jack nodded. "I know you were just trying to do the right thing, Tony. I'm sorry I had to go behind your back, but Wallace gave me little choice."

Tony nodded. "Don't worry about it, although in the future I hope we can trust each other enough to avoid anything like that again."

Jack nodded. "Absolutely."

Tony finished his drink and sat back up. "Okay, so let's get back at it."

Michelle walked up to Tony's office, nervously trying to fix her hair. She didn't know why she was nervous, but she was. She couldn't stand being away from Tony after the weekend they shared, but it was like sweet agony when they are together and she couldn't play the girlfriend role here. She was going to hate having to hide their relationship.

She pushed open his door and smiled at the two men. "Hey, Tony, Jack."

"Hey Michelle," they both said.

Michelle sat down, trying to avoid Tony's eyes, as she was nervous about giving away her feelings by even looking at him. "How you feeling, Jack?"

"Better," he replied. "Thanks for all your help the other day, Michelle. I couldn't have done it without you."

She smiled at him. "You're welcome."

"Michelle, we've been discussing the current profiles in our active system," Tony said, staying completely business-like. "Here's where we are so far…"

Michelle nodded, following along with them and contributing to the conversation. They went over each profile and where they were in the investigations. She quickly noticed that Jack was more than just good in the field; he had an excellent mind and years of experience as a prior director of C.T.U. Her respect for him started growing even more.

At one point in the conversation Tony leaned over her to grab a file and Michelle felt her face flame at the closeness. She looked over to see Jack's eyes on her and she smiled nervously. Oh, God, does he know?

She bit her lip and forced her mind back to the conversation. She prayed their meeting would end early so she could escape. This was torture. And it was only Monday. How would she get through the rest of the week? She suppressed a groan.

It was almost six when they called it a day. Tony was surprised at how well he handled himself with Michelle despite the sparks flying between them. He could tell she was nervous and wished he could have had time to calm her down. Neither of them had pre-arranged to meet at either of their apartments and he didn't have a chance to make any plans with her now. He'd have to settle calling her later or going over to her place. After spending all weekend with her he wondered if he was pushy for wanting to be with her tonight as well.

"See you tomorrow," she called to both him and Jack as she gathered her purse and briefcase.

"Bye," Tony said softly.

"Bye, Michelle," Jack called.

Tony started packing up his stuff, watching Michelle walk down the stairs and out of the bullpen. She was so damn gorgeous. He tried to suppress the grin threatening to break out, remembering the several times they had made love over the weekend.

Jack caught him off guard when he broke the silence, "So, what's going on between you two?"

Tony froze. "Who?"

Jack chuckled. "Come on, Tony. You know who I mean."

"Michelle?" he asked, trying to feign surprise. "Nothing's going on."

"Bull shit," Jack said bluntly, sitting on the edge of Tony's desk. "I'd be rich right now if I had a dollar for every time you two tried not to look at each other today."

Tony wasn't sure what to say. He felt like the preverbal deer caught in the headlights.

"Look, Tony, what you do is your business," Jack went on. "I like Michelle a lot. She seems like a nice girl, and she's definitely beautiful. But after what happened with Nina---"

"Jack, don't even compare Michelle to Nina," Tony cut in, and then sighed. "Look, I know it's dangerous, but she's nothing like Nina, Jack."

It was Jack's turn to sigh. "How long?"

"Officially since the day of the bomb," he admitted. "But we were both attracted to each other from the first day we met, really. I held off because of my fiasco with Nina."

"Is it serious?" Jack asked.

Tony looked back to where Michelle had been. "Yeah. I know it's crazy and too soon, but yeah, I think it's serious."

Jack got a far-away look in his eyes. "Sometimes it's like that. I loved Teri the moment I met her."

Tony was surprised at his admission, as Jack wasn't exactly a romantic type of guy. "I'm sorry, Jack."

Jack shook his head. "Don't be, Tony. I can't keep living in the past. If you and Michelle love each other, don't let it slip away. I don't think it's wise with you both working here, but then again, maybe that's a good thing. There were so many things that I couldn't tell Teri, that she wouldn't or couldn't understand. Does anyone else know?"

"No," Tony said. "I'd like to keep it that way, at least for now. No matter how deep our feelings, it still is new and we don't know how to proceed right now."

"I understand," Jack said. "I won't tell anyone, but if you want to keep it a secret, you'd better find a way to think of her as your sister or something while at work."

Tony laughed. "I don't think that's possible."

Jack slapped him on the back. "Then you'd better find a way to tell Chappelle."

Tony groaned.

Jack laughed at him and started to leave his office. "I'm happy for you, Tony. I know Nina's betrayal had to hurt you too, so I'm glad you found someone who can make you happy."

"Thanks, Jack," Tony said softly.