1:00, CTU Los Angeles

Alex had just been told something about Nina by Michelle, so he had decided to talk to her whilst he still could. He made the trip to the holding room slowly, thinking about what exactly he wanted to say to her. Entering the room, he noticed that she was asleep, her head resting on her arm. If she wasn't handcuffed and chained to a table, she would look just like any other young woman taking a quick nap. Sitting down before gently nudging her arm, Alex could see her tense up immediately but, as she slowly moved her head up to see who her visitor was, he saw her almost fully relax once more.

"Hello Nina, you'll be leaving CTU within the next hour or so," Alex informed her, and he could see a look of relief wash over her face.

"I guess the bomb is no longer a threat?" Nina asked, and Alex was all too happy to let her know, although he decided to keep some things to himself.

"Yes, it was detonated over the desert a couple of hours ago," he replied. Nina took a quick look at the clock, before returning her gaze to Alex.

"I guess nobody was in a rush to let me know that," Nina smirked. She could understand that, after all she had helped terrorists bomb CTU earlier that day.

"Could you really have lived with all of those millions of dead innocents on your conscience?" Alex asked her, and she wasn't at all surprised by the question. Of course, even she would have had difficulty accepting that number of deaths, but she felt that she was far enough removed from the actual plot to not consider it a burden on her,

"I didn't know about the nuke until CTU did," Nina replied, simply, although she had known of the plot. Alex felt an urge to ask her what she thought their parents would think of her now but decided to pose a different question.

"When you were in prison, you refused visits for eight months. Why was that?" he asked her, and Nina tried not to look surprised at the question. It was after months of a trial, of numerous interrogations and angry visits. Why would she want to keep getting reminded of it? Of course, she had a secret that she intended to take to her grave, so she needed an answer to satisfy her brother.

"I just wanted to be left alone, Alex. I wasn't going to give CTU, or Jack, anything, so all of their efforts were just useless," Nina replied, looking at Alex to see if he would believe her. It was the truth, just not all of it. Alex decided that he would accept the answer, although he could tell that Nina was hiding something as she usually was. He wanted to tell her how his months after that day had been - starting from the moment she had been arrested, all the way up until the present minute - but he felt that it would be wasted on her. Of course, she would feel certain emotions about certain events, but it seemed that she held little interest in anything that didn't help her. Instead, for the second time today, Nina would compartmentalize a monologue.

"Even after what you did to Jack and his family, even after you helped bomb CTU and helped with the nuke plot, I know my sister is in there somewhere, Nina. The one who would never commit cold-blooded murder, the one who never made compromises, the one who could be trusted by everyone. I know she's still there, and she can hear these words and maybe, one day, she'll be here again. It won't undo everything you've done, but at the very least it would mean we could understand you better. I hate what you've done and what you've become, but I still love my sister," Alex spoke, his eyes never breaking contact with hers. As he expected, she seemed to be almost recording the words, not really listening, not really absorbing or understanding them. Yet, he knew that deep down his words were being stored somewhere, and he knew that Nina, his sister, would be listening.

1:30, Carol O'Neill's house, San Jose

The nightmares had been coming back, so Kim had decided to give up on sleeping for now. Clutching a warm mug of camomile tea in her hands, she was sat up in bed, trying not to think of the events of the last day or so. Checking the clock next to her bed, she sighed and wondered if she would need to go to therapy again - she had made good progress although there were definitely some things she still needed to work on. One of those was her relationship with her father, which at the moment was completely non-existent. Just his face or even his voice reminded her of that day, the worst day of her life, which hurt her because she loved her father and hated that her mind could not see him without that day wrapped around him. Now that she wasn't going to be looking after Meghan anymore, she had to consider what she would do next, and for a moment a strange idea came into her head. She imagined herself working at CTU, alongside her dad, alongside Alex. If she could do that, not only see her father every working day but also work at the place where her mother was murdered, then she could do anything. Chuckling to herself, she wondered what her therapist would think of the idea.

1:40, CTU Los Angeles

Alex was in the break room, drinking lukewarm coffee. His injuries from the bombing and the crash were letting him know that they were still there, and whilst he wanted nothing more than to sleep for a day, he knew that he had to do what he could to help stop a war. Thinking of the bombing, he wondered how the agent he had talked to in the garage, Annie Raines, was doing. Before he had left the hospital, he had been told that she was doing well. More than half a day had passed since the explosions had ripped apart both CTU as well as lives. Paula had been killed by it, her last moments spent trying to help out CTU in a small but significant way. She had expressed her joy at working at CTU, although Alex had been confused as to why, and it had all been stolen from her hours after she had started working there. His first day at CTU Los Angeles had been bad, but at least he had gotten out of it alive.

Finishing his drink and his short break, he returned to his workstation. Checking the time, he saw that it would soon be time for Nina to be moved out of CTU.

The corridor between the holding room and the exit had numerous armed guards waiting to escort her to an armoured car. From there it was a trip to an air field, then a plane would take her to a US base in Tunisia. Alex was there with them, watching as a chained Nina was brought out of the holding room and, for a moment, he had an image in his head of Jack suddenly appearing with a gun to shoot her. The convoy had stopped for a moment, to allow him to talk to Nina for what he was sure would not be the last time.

"Well, you'll be in sunny Tunisia later today, Nina, I can't say it's been a pleasure meeting you again," Alex spoke, and he could see her smile slightly.

"You should come and visit sometime Alex," she replied, a comment that Alex thought was strange. Was it even possible to do that? In a way, he felt like he might just do that, maybe being far away from CTU, and Jack, would help her relax and give him the answers he wanted.

"Maybe I should, if I can do that," he said. He assumed it would be difficult to sort out, but if there was a chance of it being useful, he had to find out. Nina looked at him, before deciding to let him know something.

"I was only activated about a month before that day," Nina spoke, and for a moment Alex was confused, before he realised what she meant. He had submitted the transfer request in December, it had been accepted in January but bureaucratic red tape had meant that it would be March before he would start at CTU LA, and between the acceptance and his start date, Nina had been told that she would be helping the Drazens.

"Do you ever feel regret or remorse for your actions?" Alex asked, and for a moment Nina looked hurt, before she nodded.

"Of course, but the path I took needed those actions to happen," Nina replied. She hadn't wanted to kill Jamey, or Teri, or Faheen. She hadn't wanted to betray her country, she hadn't wanted CTU bombed or the nuke to go off. Yet she understood it all clearly - if she wanted to survive, she had to do what was necessary, even if it often gave her both nightmares and flashbacks that she would never admit to having.

As the guards escorting her resumed their task, Alex watched in silence. He knew that it wouldn't be the last time he would see his sister, and he knew there was a good chance that this wouldn't be her last time at CTU.

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